


Wolf mother, where you been? (You look so worn, so thin)

by dwellingondreams



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Arranged Marriage, Butterfly Effect, Canon Divergence - Robert's Rebellion, Canon-Typical Violence, Consensual Underage Sex, F/M, Female Friendship, Female Ned Stark, Female-Centric, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Marriage, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Sexism, Period-Typical Underage, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Robert's Rebellion, Tourney at Harrenhal, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-10-28 22:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10840959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwellingondreams/pseuds/dwellingondreams
Summary: An Eddard is born an Eddara. (In which Edda Stark travels to Storm's End to spend time with her betrothed's family, and some things change, while others remain the same)."You never could lie for love nor honor." - Robert Baratheon





	1. Chapter 1

Edda’s betrothal was announced when she was twelve years old. On the day of it, she was playing at swords with her sister in the yard.

“Stop going easy on me, Edda!” Lya snapped. She was nine, and just starting to grow into the long face and haunting grey eyes they both shared. The difference was, Edda thought, that she would never grow into her own appearance with such ease. 

“I’m not,” she said simply, preferring to concentrate on her footwork as she parried her sister’s swing at her, the wooden swords clashing together hollowly. “This was your idea, anyways.” 

Edda didn’t mind messing about with the practice swords with Lya once in a while, but she didn’t have the passion for it that her sister did. She much preferred riding, or reading. Or in general, things that weren’t going to provoke a lecture from Father. Lya was always getting both of them into trouble with Father, or Septa, or Maester Walys. 

Lya growled in frustration, and with a small sigh, Edda let the younger girl disarm her, her sword clattering to the ground. 

“Ha! By the time I’m your age I’ll be as good as Brandon,” Lya bragged with her usual wild grin. She shared that with Brandon, as well as a similar personality. They made up all the fire of the Stark family, while Edda liked to think that she and Benjen were the ice. 

“Oh, certainly,” she said, a bit sarcastically but fondly all the same. She loved Lya, even if her willful younger sister danced between charming and infuriating, much like their elder brother.

“I will,” Lya vowed. “I swear it. I’ll fight in a tourney one day, Edda. You’ll see.”

Edda just shook her head and smiled. Lya still lived in a realm where anything seemed possible- that a lady might become a knight, riding into battle swinging a mace or sword. In time, she’d have to grow up, just as Edda had. At least, she hoped her sister would, or she would be sorely disappointed by the time she flowered. 

Edda had just flowered two months prior, and now the idea of becoming a real lady, a grown woman, seemed much more present than it ever had before. It’d been easy to imagine living out her entire life at Winterfell, with her siblings, but eventually they’d be separated. She knew that. Brandon would take a wife and be lord when Father died, and she and Lya and Benjen would all have to marry as well. But it was easy to forget.

“Girls!” The two sisters exchanged a mutual look of dismay as Septa Lyselle, whose stringy blonde hair was swifting going grey, hurried into the courtyard. She was a skinny, wrinkled woman with a high, reedy voice and a pinched mouth. Edda sometimes felt badly for her; she had her hands full, between the two of them. If Edda wasn’t tripping over herself while attempting to dance or butchering the high harp, Lya was running off to play with the servants or sneaking off, wooden sword in hand. 

“Practicing with swords like boys,” Septa Lyselle hissed in annoyance. “It’s disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful- what would your late lady mother say?”

Edda frowned at that, eyes darkening in anger- Septa had no right to speak of her mother- while Lya scowled, throwing her sword down. “We were just playing.”

“You are getting too old to be ‘just playing’,” the woman said severely. “Eddara, your lord father wishes to speak with you on a matter of great importance. Go to him at once, while I take your sister into hand here-,”

Lya had snatched up her sword again, and was pointing it accusingly in the septa’s direction. “You’ll never take me alive, foul beast!”

“Lyanna Stark, stop this nonsense this instant-,”

Edda hurried off, hiding a smile behind her hand as the sound of the septa’s furious ranting and Lya’s yelling faded into the distance behind her. Still, she couldn’t help but worry about what her father wished to speak to her, alone, about. She knew her father loved her, and all her siblings, dearly, but he was reserved and often cold, and had been so for nearly as long as she could remember. Since Mother had died, at the very least, and Edda had been very small then.

Her lord father saw her in Maester Walys’ tower. Her father towered over the short, plump man, who was from the Reach by birth and had the russet hair and ruddy freckles to show for a youth spent in sunny fields. He’d always seemed a bit out of place in the cold, crisp North.

“Eddara,” her father greeted her as solemnly as ever. “Take a seat.”

Edda did so nervously, smoothing her skirts and trying to ignore the splinter in one of her hands from the wooden sword. 

“Now that you are approaching a woman grown, it has come to my attention that a betrothal must be arranged for you. You are the eldest daughter of our house, and I would see you have a marriage befitting your station.”

“And one in the best interests of House Stark,” Maester Walys added, thick hands clasped together. 

Edda looked between them silently. So she was to be betrothed. She wasn’t shocked by this, although she did wonder… One of the heirs of her father’s liege lords, no doubt- Starks always married to fellow Northron-

“I have written to Lord Baratheon, and he has agreed to a betrothal between his eldest son, Robert, and you.”

Edda blinked slowly, processing what she’d just heard. To… a Baratheon? But they were-

“It would make you Lady of Storm’s End, Lady Eddara,” Maester Walys added eagerly. “You and young Robert are of the same age, and while he is currently being fostered at the Vale…,”

“I would have you go to Storm’s End to meet with your future goodfather and goodmother,” Rickard Stark continued, as soberly as ever, expression unchanging. “The young Baratheon will be brought home shortly thereafter, so that you might meet before you are wed. Afterwards he will return to the Vale to continue his fosterhood with Lord Arryn, and you will come back to Winterfell, to prepare for your wedding.”

Even if she went by sea, Edda was quickly calculating in her head, it would be a good month at sea to reach Storm’s End all the way from White Harbor. And by the time Robert Baratheon arrived home… It’d be at least a year, if not two, by the time she returned to Winterfell. Then another two until they were both of age to wed…

‘Don’t send me away,’ she wanted to plead. ‘I’ll be good, I’ll be the best daughter one could ask for, only don’t make me go, Father. I’m afraid that if I leave I’ll never come home again.’ But to do so would be juvenile and shameful, and only irritate her father, so instead she bowed her head obediently. “As you say, Father. I’m… I am honored by the match you have made for me. Thank you.”

“You are a good girl, Eddara,” Rickard Stark said gravely. “And a dutiful daughter. You do me proud.”

This was the most praise Edda had heard from the man in years. She flushed slightly, but looked up at him. He was not smiling- her father never smiled- but his dark grey eyes seemed to have… softened, somewhat. She took her leave of him and the maester, and managed to contain her tears until she’d reached her bedchamber. 

Then and only then did she allow herself to begin to cry, lying facedown on her bed, stifling the sound of her sobs with the sheets. She had not wept like this since her mother had died. She couldn’t remember what that had felt like, but wondered if this overwhelming sense of loss was similar, even if she hadn’t lost anything yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Father had told Edda she could bring a few ladies to Storm’s End with her, as the Baratheons had no daughters, but would not permit Lya to go, insisting that she was too young to be away from home for such a long time. Edda suspected it had more to do with the fact that he didn’t want to be humiliated by his wild younger daughter’s actions. 

Lya was hardly likely to suddenly drop her wooden swords and act the perfect little lady just because she was told to do so. And Brandon was away being fostered at Barrowton with the Dustins, and Benjen was about to go to Oldcastle; Father’s mother had been a Locke. 

Lya of course was horrified that she’d be the only sibling left at Winterfell, without even Edda to escape Septa Lyselle with, but Edda thought she was being a bit melodramatic; Benjen would only ever be a three week’s ride away, able to visit at least a few times a year, and Barrowton was an even shorter distance. Edda was the one being flung across the continent. 

And so she had considered her options, not that there were many. The only young maidens around her age who were not already betrothed were timid Jonelle Cerwyn and sarcastic Barbrey Ryswell. Still, Edda considered both girls friends of a sort, and she was not going to be the only Northron girl at Storm’s End if she could help it. Father was sending about a dozen Northron men south with her, and it’d be a miserable trip if it was just her with no one to talk to but Martyn Cassel and Ethan Glover. 

Lya had thrown a fit when Edda had told her, insisting that it wasn’t fair, that Father couldn’t just send her away, but had eventually come around when Edda had promised to write her as often as she could.

“I’ll be back home before you know it,” she said, wrapping an arm around her sister’s skinny shoulders. Edda was a thin, lean girl, but Lya had limbs like sticks and sharper features.

“And then you’ll have to get married and leave again,” Lya scowled, resting her head on Edda’s chest. “I don’t want you to go. Why can’t I come with you?”

“Someone has to be the Lady of Winterfell,” Edda reminded her. The role had fallen to her since she was old enough to walk; Mother had died when she was barely five years old, and since then Edda had always been expected to be the graceful, mature eldest daughter, learning how to run a household and sew and dance. Lya had far less expectations set on her, even if she didn’t realize it yet. 

“I don’t want to be a lady,” Lya grumbled, but reluctantly looked at her sister when Edda took her by the shoulders seriously.

“You’re a Stark, Lyanna. You have to think of everyone else before yourself. Father needs you here. Brandon and Benjen need you here. I need you to be here to make sure everyone is alright while I’m away.”

Lya bit her lip. “Alright,” she said slowly. “I’ll try, Edda. I just… I wanted you to always be a Stark, not a Baratheon.”

Edda slowly laid down next to her in the bed with a small smile. “Of course I’ll always be a Stark, silly. You can take a wolf out of the North, but you can’t take the North out of a wolf.”

She left one cool morning a week later, just before Benjen was due to be sent off to Old Castle. Brandon was home, having travelled there with the Dustins and Barbrey, whom was clearly, at least to Edda, infatuated with Brandon. 

Barbrey was tall for her age and thin of frame, like Edda, but her hair was a far lighter shade of brown and she had a few more freckles, much to her vocal displeasure. Barbrey was very clever but very proud, and while she usually didn’t dare mock Edda outright, she could be rather scathing when she felt threatened. Edda didn’t mind Barbrey most of the time, for she could be quite funny, if a bit overdramatic, and she at least wouldn’t pretend to like you if she did not. 

The Ryswell was clearly torn between excitement at the chance to go so far South and dismay at the idea of leaving behind Brandon, the primary reason why Barbrey could be found more often at Barrowton than home in the Rills. 

Barbrey wasn’t one to simper or fawn, but her eyes rarely left Edda’s brother’s already tall for his age frame. Brandon had wild hair so dark a brown it was nearly black, which he let grow down almost to his shoulders, and although he couldn’t really manage a beard yet, Edda was sure he’d have one as soon as he could grow more than wisps on his chin.

“A Ryswell was lady of Winterfell once,” Barbrey was fond of reminding Edda, and anyone who’d listen. “Mayhaps it will be so once more.”

Edda couldn’t be sure of Brandon’s feelings for Barbrey; he enjoyed the attention he got from her as much as he likely did that from any pretty girl, but his moods were quick to change and his opinions shifted even quicker. Edda was surprised to see him in the godswood when he came upon her praying; Brandon was hardly the devout sort.

“Were I a man grown, I wouldn’t let Father pack you off to those bloody Southroners,” he grumbled, reluctantly crouching down beside her in the mossy earth. Brandon was only thirteen, of course, and had three more years of fosterhood until he was free to go where he pleased when he pleased, although truth be told he had plenty of freedom already; the Dustins were hesitant to be too hard on the eldest son of their liege-lord, and so he spent more time out riding and hunting than being cooped up in some keep.

Edda just regarded him calmly. Although she and Brandon were only a year apart, and had often been mistaken for twins as children, they had never been very close. She loved her older brother deeply, but he was ‘half-wild’ as the servants said, and she was steady, sensible Edda, not prone to running off to make trouble with him. Lya and Brandon would have been as alike as mirror images, had they not always fought like, well… wolves. They were too similar, each too stubborn and strong-willed to ever admit they were wrong. 

And Benjen was the baby of the family and so often dismissed or forgotten. Edda tried to take him under her wing whenever she could, although he and Lya did seem to enjoy teasing one another. She felt another sting of regret for her younger sister, who would miss her and Benjen very much once they were both gone and she was the only Stark child living at Winterfell.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Brandon snapped, shifting uncomfortably. When he was annoyed he still pouted slightly like the little boy he had been not so long ago, for all his talk of being a man. “You look like Father with that stare on your face.”

“The difference is you never listen to me,” she pointed out bluntly, but smiled at him anyways, coaxing a slight grin onto his face.

“You… you’ll be alright, won’t you?” he asked gruffly, clambering to his feet and helping her up. Once they had been the same height, but already he was starting to tower over her. “Won’t let them shame you for keeping our customs and not theirs?”

“I’ll be fine,” Edda assured him. “Really, Lord and Lady Baratheon have already written me once, and they seem kind and courteous. They told me a bit about Robert; it sounds like him and you would get along very well.” The Baratheons had, of course, been vague, but had insinuated that the heir to Storm’s End was more than a little… headstrong. Edda wasn’t too concerned. She could handle headstrong. Brandon and Lya had been practice for this.

“Well, won’t meet him until the wedding, will I?” Brandon retorted. “You ought to be betrothed to one of our vassals, like Ethan. Or even Elbert! The Vale’s not so far away as bloody Storm’s End, gods!”

Edda swatted him with a frown. “Not in the godswood!”

“Sorry,” he muttered, rubbing his arm. 

She sighed. “I’m not going away forever, Bran. I’ll see you again, you and Lya and Ben. We’ll all be together once more, before I’m married.”

He still looked upset, but pulled her into a stiff one-armed hug all the same. Edda hesitantly wrapped her long arms around him as well. They hadn’t shown this kind of affection towards one another in years.

“Don’t let those stags push you around too much,” he told her half-teasingly.

“Be good and listen to Father and the Dustins,” she warned him in response, but the two left the godswood looking a little lighter in spirits.

Southron ladies might have made the trip to White Harbor in a wheelhouse, but Edda was of Northron stock, and rode a young white palfrey named Marna, after her paternal grandmother. Barbrey might as well have been part horse, being a Ryswell, and even Jonelle, who wasn’t very fond of riding, managed fine. 

The three girls frequently surged ahead of their guard, earning scolding and shouts from the men behind them, but in the general the mood was a light-hearted one. They had little to fear in a peaceful North, and any bandits about wouldn’t dare attack a Stark party headed towards the coastline. 

Barbrey was very talkative and never at a loss for words, but Edda did try to pay some attention to poor shy Jonelle as well, who was often forgotten, despite the fact that she came from one of the most powerful houses in the North, although they were small. Jonelle had never been faced with the prospect of being so far from home before, and so while obviously excited to come along, was quite quiet the first few days of travel. Barbrey was far from sympathetic towards the younger girl, but Edda tried to comfort her as best she could.

Jonelle was round-faced and not particularly pretty, but she had big, earnest brown eyes and a pleasant smile. She was small for her age and barely came up to Edda’s shoulder, but kept her ash blonde hair in a thick braid. Jonelle was fairly innocent and sheltered; like Edda, she had lost her mother when she was young from illness, but she had no siblings to speak of, although there was talk of her father remarrying in order to give House Cerwyn a male heir. 

Edda suspected the man would be married again by the time Jonelle returned to the North. Still, Jonelle, when she was coaxed to talk without fear of being sneered at or ignored, was good company, and she and Edda got along quite well, both being quiet and reserved in nature. 

They spent a day and a night with the Manderlys of White Harbor, entertained by the stout brothers Wylis and Wendel and their laughing father Wyman, before departing on the ship which would take them on the month-long voyage down the coast-line. Edda managed being at sea fine, although the Starks had not been aboard many ships since Bran the Burner had destroyed the Northron fleet long ago. Barbrey proclaimed to want to die from boredom almost daily, but survived, while Jonelle was sea-sick more often than not, and often cooped up in the cabin. 

But because they kept close to land there were things to see the further south they travelled, and the trip passed quicker than Edda would have expected. She explained exactly what flowering entailed to a disgusted ten year old Barbrey and terrified eight year old Jonelle when they asked after her bloody rags at one point, and all three huddled in one bed after a particularly gruesome ghost story from Barbrey, which had them shrieking and gasping at every groan and moan of the ship. They watched birds fly down to snatch up fish and at one point even glimpsed several creatures in the water that one of the sailors said were mermaids… or dolphins. 

But by far the most welcome sight was that of the the emerald isle of Tarth, surrounded by the bright sapphire waters of Shipbreaker’s Bay, for just beyond that lay Storm’s End, a pale grey smudge on the shoreline, growing larger by the hour.


	3. Chapter 3

Storm’s End was nothing like what Edda had expected. She had expected a battered old castle on a cliff. Which it was, but Storm’s End was massive, more grim than magnificent, in a way similar to Winterfell. They said it had been constructed by Durran Godsgrief, who’d taken Elenei to wed, and faced the wrath of the gods by doing so. The children of the forest were said to have helped fortify the walls with magic, so that no storm might ever topple it. 

And then some said Bran the Builder, who’d founded Edda’s house, had helped to construct the impenetrable fortress. She felt some sense of belonging, looking at it, so maybe the legends were true.

They had to dock a ways away in an isolated cove, for Storm’s End had no place for ships, to avoid raids by sea, and Shipbreaker’s Bay was more treacherous the bigger the ship. From there it was a two hour ride up to the cliffs. The Stormlands were known for their unpredictable weather, but it was only misting lightly during the ride, and while the winding horse paths were slick and treacherous, they were nothing when one was used to the terrain of the North.

Relieved to be on solid ground again, Edda pushed Marna hard, determined to reach the fortress by mid-day, and Barbrey and Jonelle were close behind, Martyn Cassel grumbling a ways back. “The little storm lord’s not even here yet,” the older boy muttered, but Edda simply adjusted the hood of her riding cloak and rode onwards.

“It wouldn’t do for us to make my future goodfather and mother wait.”

When they finally reached the top of the cliffs, Storm’s End looming in front of them, the mists had gone and the sun burned faintly in the sky behind veils of airy gray clouds. The air smelled strongly of the sea. A party was coming forward to meet them, decked out in gold and black, with stag banners. 

Edda had not expected the Storm Lord himself to ride out to receive them, but the tall, strong man with the stag’s helm under one brawny arm could be no one else. Suddenly she regretted not riding at a more sedate pace; her pale gray cloak was damp and spattered with mud, and her thick hair was frizzing in its pinned up braid. Southron ladies did not wear their hair down so much as Northron ladies did.

“Lord Baratheon,” she said, fighting to keep her tone calm and restrained, and inclined her head from her position in the saddle. “I am most pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Lady Eddara, the pleasure is all ours,” Steffon Baratheon returned politely. He was an imposing man with strong features; a square jaw and well-trimmed, fiercely black beard, and a full head of black hair, as he was not yet even in his thirties. His eyes were a dark, piercing blue, but the look in them was kind.

“My ladies,” Edda said, swallowing, and nodded to Barbrey and Jonelle on either side of her. “Lady Barbrey Ryswell of the Rills and Lady Jonelle Cerwyn of Castle Cerwyn.”

The clearly nervous girls ducked their heads shyly, even bold Barbrey.

“You are all most welcome here at Storm’s End,” Lord Baratheon said, and when he smiled, looked even younger than his twenty nine years. He still had a boy’s charming grin. “My lady wife is impatiently awaiting your arrival in the keep. We shall not keep her waiting, then.”

“He’s handsome,” Barbrey hissed in Edda’s ear accusingly as they rode on towards the castle, as if she’d expected some fat old man. 

“You should be more respectful of the lord paramount of the Stormlands,” Edda hissed back, and then they were coming to the main gate, and she rode in silence, eyes flitting up to the sky above them momentarily before taking in the courtyard. In the center stood a woman and a boy, and Edda took them to be Lady Cassana Baratheon and Stannis, her betrothed’s younger brother. 

Lord Baratheon dismounted swiftly and joined his wife and son, and Edda was helped down from her horse by an overeager Ethan Glover, before approaching the three Baratheons. She struggled to remember all of Septa Lyselle’s lessons as she curtsied deeply.

To her surprise, Lady Cassana came forward and grasped her hands fondly in her own; she looked to be around her lord husband’s age, and while not beautiful, was an attractive, handsome woman with a heart-shaped face framed by light brown curls and striking green eyes. 

“We are so happy to finally be able to meet you, Lady Eddara,” she said earnestly. “I hope you will come to consider Storm’s End a second home during your time here.”

“Th-thank you, my lady,” Edda managed, caught off guard by such an open, almost maternal display of warmness. She barely remembered her own late mother’s face, never mind how affectionate she might have been, and her father had not been one for being overly close with his children. Her primary female figure had been Septa, and Septa had been no mother to her, not really.

She remembered to introduce her ladies and men once more, and chanced a smile at Stannis, who was a particularly dour-faced boy, especially for a Southroner. He was tall and brawny for his age, which was only a year younger than her, but he had the expression of a much older, world-weary person. He did not smile back, but he did not frown or scowl, either, which she took as a good sign.

She was introduced to the maester, Cressen, a kindly faced man in his fifties, Ser Harbert, Lord Steffon’s uncle and the castellan of Storm’s End, and several others, and then escorted to her rooms in the great tower in the middle of the castle. The chambers, located near the very top of the tower, which were joined with Barbrey and Jonelle’s, led into one sitting room with a view out onto the bay. The sea seemed calm enough now, but Edda knew it could change in an instant. And the distant sound of the waves crashing against the cliff-side was a strange one; she was used to the sound of howling winds and snow buffeting tower windows, of the pines whispering to one another in the wolfswood. 

She took off her cloak and folded it in her hands while staring out the window; Barbey was poking around in wardrobes and drawers, and Jonelle was reveling in the softness of one of the beds after a month of sleeping on a hard ship’s cot. They’d been invited to dine with the Baratheons tonight; a much grander feast would follow when Robert arrived home next month, with the other Storm Lords in attendance.

Edda peered over her Northron dresses in dismay; she’d had a few new ones gifted to her by her father before the journey south, but many of them were simply too warm for this cool, but certainly not frigid weather. And they were all quite plain, compared to the gowns she knew Southron ladies wore. Septa Lyselle had always said so. 

Barbrey pursed her lips beside her; she always liked to look her best. “Here,” she finally said, “This one.” She pulled out one that was midnight blue with gold stitching at the collar, waist, and sleeves. It was billowy but fit Edda nicely, aside from being a bit big in the chest. She worried over her hair, which was long and straight and otherwise nothing to write songs about; Lyanna had lovely dark curls, but Edda’s was just a shade lighter and, she’d always thought, made her face look even longer than it actually was.

“Leave it,” Barbrey instructed, “They wanted a Northron girl, didn’t they?” She turned to argue with Jonelle, who was being helped into a severe black gown by a maid. “You look like a little widow.”

“I do not! Black’s my house’s color!”

By the time the food was served in the feasting hall a proper storm had started up outside, and the candles flickered and sputtered while the sea raged just outside the castle walls. Jonelle looked petrified by how loud the storm was, despite having experienced just as many snowstorms as the rest of them, while Barbrey tried and failed to make light conversation with Stannis, who looked as though he’d rather be anywhere else. There was less meat and more fish than Edda was used to dining on, but all in all, the cuisine with not so different from that of the North’s, although there was more fruit and bread to be had. 

Lord and Lady Baratheon were as polite and kind as ever, and clearly, Edda realized with a start, very much in love with one another. They exchanged fond glances like young lovers might, smiled and laughed in the same manner, and spoke highly of each other. Lady Cassana was an Estermont by birth, and Lord Steffon told Edda with a relaxed smile that his wife had learned to swim and dive off of cliffs into the ocean before she could walk.

“My lord husband exaggerates,” Lady Cassana assured her with a smile. “I spent plenty of days cooped up inside as a child; it rains on Estermont more often than not. I’m afraid the landscape is not quite so lovely as Tarth; we shall have to visit there at some point. Lord and Lady Tarth have an infant son, Galladon.”

“Lord Stannis, what do you like to do?” Barbrey was asking Stannis, who was frowning down at his food as if waging an internal shouting match.

He looked up, mouth knitting into a firm line. “Read,” he said in a quiet, plain voice. “And I have a goshawk, Proudwing. I found him hurt, and I’m trying to get him to fly again.”

“I told you to leave that bird to die, lad,” Ser Harbert snorted. “There’s a reason Robert calls the thing Weakwing.”

Barbrey giggled and Stannis flushed red and his blue eyes darkened in anger at the mention of his brother. Edda watched this carefully; there was some resentment between them, or at least on Stannis’s part. She supposed it was probably common enough with second sons to feel some bitterness towards the firstborn heir, but Benjen had never displayed any towards Brandon that she’d ever noticed. Then again, Brandon and Benjen were five years apart, not one.

“I should like to see it,” Jonelle ventured shyly; she’d barely spoken all meal. “I… I look after the hawks and ravens we keep at home, sometimes.”

Lord and Lady Baratheon looked pleased someone had expressed interest in something related to their younger son, and Stannis nodded stiffly after a moment, clearly taken aback by the young girl’s earnestness. 

When the meal had concluded Edda lingered behind to thank the lord and lady once again, as Barbrey and Jonelle waited impatiently nearby, eager to sleep after the events of the day. Stannis brooded in a doorway; although he was a cold sort of boy, Edda could tell that he obviously loved his parents and was eager for their approval. 

After all, the Baratheons only had their two sons, so she supposed that was why Stannis had not been sent away to foster, so that they still had one child at home. Not every woman could bear very many children, although Lady Cassana had looked a little wistful and Lord Steffon sad when Edda had described her three siblings.

“Thank you again for your generosity, my lord, my lady,” she said a bit awkwardly, smiling back hesitantly at them in the dim light. 

“Of course, Lady Eddara,” Lady Cassana said. “We are so happy to have you here, and- and Robert will be home soon, of course, so that you two may get to know one another at last.”

“I look forward to it, my lady,” Edda said, although she really didn’t know what to think of her betrothed at all. In person, his parents had described him as ‘stubborn as the shore’ and willful, although they hoped he was learning some restraint from Lord Arryn. He was proud and brave to a fault. She supposed those were all traits any young maiden would want in a man, but that didn’t give her much insight into his character. 

She wasn’t even sure what she wanted in a husband. Someone like Father, she supposed, if perhaps a bit less harsh and cold. Someone who would smile at her and tell her she was pretty, even if it wasn’t strictly true. But someone honest, who’d never smile and lie to her face. Someone willing to do what was right, even if it was unpopular. Someone who’d fight for her, but who knew when to make peace. 

But she was thinking of a knight from legend, not a real, breathing young man. Such expectations were naive at best and childish at worst. Robert would be whoever he was, and there would be little she could do to change him. She’d simply have to adapt to him. She worried about that. Northroners were not so good at adapting. Everything they did was rooted in ancient custom and tradition. 

What if Robert was displeased with her, thought her an uncultured savage or worse, dull and insipid? What if he came to hate her, or worse, simply ignored her? Edda had always been the one to yield to the will of others in her family, to yield to duty, but she had her pride, and she did not think it could tolerate that. She didn’t have expectations of a passionate romance out of Old Nan’s tales, but she did want some sort of foundation to build upon. Father had loved Mother, hadn’t he? Perhaps not at first, but over time he had.

She just wanted some hope of that. She thought about it that night, as she listened to the roar of the sea outside, like a beast waiting to swallow her up as soon as she closed her eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

In the month spent at Storm’s End prior to her betrothed’s arrival, some of Edda’s anxiety and fears had settled. The people there were for the most part kind. Lord and Lady Baratheon were very gracious. Barbrey seemed content to flirt with the squires and pine after Lord Steffon, and Jonelle seemed to have won over grim young Stannis by sheer virtue of her sweetness. 

The sea was often rough, but Edda had been out on the gentler shallows away from the bay a few times, and could safely say that while she was never quite at ease, she enjoyed the feeling of the sea spray on her face and the wind at her back. 

It rained constantly, but the land was good for riding, and she was allowed to come and go as she pleased. Lord Steffon sometimes accompanied her and Barbrey and Jonelle, much to Jonelle’s delight, as Lady Cassana confessed she had no great love of it, and often Stannis was sent out with them. He brightened considerably at the prospect when being told he was being entrusted with the safety of the ladies. 

There were hunts and hawkings and a visit across the bay on a spate of calm days to the beautiful Tarth. Evenfall Hall was like a castle out of the old legends, and Lord and Lady Tarth were reserved but polite, more preoccupied with their growing baby boy than anything else. There was also a visit to Bronzegate, with its impressive metalwork, and then, when they had returned, there was a raven, and the word that the heir to Storm’s End would be home soon, and the fortress was sent into a flurry of activity.

And Edda’s nerves returned. She found herself staying far more to her rooms, claiming tiredness but in reality simply afraid. Afraid of what, she wasn’t sure. Robert Baratheon was just a boy. She couldn’t control what he said or did upon meeting her. But she worried still. She’d felt honored and appreciated here. 

The Baratheons had been more friendly and generous than they had any right to be, but if Robert’s feelings towards her were less than amiable… would they turn against her? She had no wish to feel like an outsider once more. They might not pack her off back North, but she could easily be miserable here for quite some time, with only her ladies for company, until it was time to go home to prepare for the wedding.

She’d worked so hard to be gracious and sweet and kind at all times, and the idea of that all crumbling down around her was terrifying. It was exhausting, being the perfect lady all the time. There had been expectations for her at Winterfell, but there had also been a sense of comfort and ease, that she belonged, no matter what. They all belonged, even wild Lya. 

She’d written Lya twice since her arrival, but had only received one short reply- although she knew she could not resent that so much, because Lya had little patience for letters or writing in general, and she’d seemed well enough, if a bit dejected.

She’d thought to write Robert before- but had always lost her nerve, and besides, from what she’d heard of him, he didn’t seem the type of boy-man to appreciate timid letters professing love and admiration they both knew did not exist, and might never exist. And so Edda brooded, something she’d always been rather good at, and was only occasionally dragged from it by an annoyed Barbrey.

“If you keep this up, I’ll impersonate you when he arrives and seduce him in some secluded cove,” the other girl declared firmly, taking Edda by the shoulders.

“Barbrey, you wouldn’t!” Jonelle gasped, eyes wide in childish shock.

“You don’t know what I would or won’t do,” the other girl sniped back, and so Edda sighed and agreed to go out to walk the beach with them.

She enjoyed the feeling of the sand under her boots; boots were the only practical things when the ground was like to turn to slick mud in a matter of moments with the frequent rainstorms, but on that day it was as clear as it was like to get, and the waves were almost gentle. Jonelle dragged a piece of driftwood along so they could write their names and watch the tide wash the letters away, and they were bent over the task when Barbrey saw the ship.

“It’s him!” she shrieked, and Jonelle yelped and dropped the driftwood. Edda straightened and narrowed her gray eyes out onto the bay, and then felt her heart drop into her stomach at the approaching ship. Reason told her that it would hours yet until the ship was close enough to find a place to dock, but she picked up her sandy skirts and ran back towards the cliffs all the same.

“Where are you going?!” Barbrey demanded, hands on her hips, and Jonelle called after her, but Edda did not stop, or turn to see if they were following. By the time she was scrambling up onto Marna, arranging her skirts hurriedly, she was completely out of breath, and she was nearly falling off the horse by the time she’d reached the fortress. Men at arms looked askance at her and servants murmured, but she simply said she’d seen Lord Robert’s ship coming in, and they hurried off to finish the preparations.

She found some refuge in the hawkery, away from all the madness. She was unsurprised to see Stannis sitting in a corner, feeding a bird in his lap scraps of meat. He frowned sharply at her when he saw her, like a disapproving septa, and Edda ran her hands through her pin-straight hair, smoothing it away from her face. “Your brother will be riding in soon,” she said quietly, and couldn’t keep the tremor out of her voice.

“I heard,” said Stannis flatly, returning his cold stare to his goshawk. “The Storm Prince returns.”

“He is- he is only a lord,” Edda tried a smile, but it felt wrong.

“More a lord than I will ever be,” Stannis scowled, still not looking up.

“It may… it may very well be different when you are older,” she took a few steps forward and slowly sat down beside him, her skirts pooling around her.

“The floor is filthy,” Stannis commented, but did not tell her to leave.

“I miss my siblings very much,” said Edda after a moment. “I have an older brother as well, and we… we don’t often get along, but I know that he cares greatly for me, and I him.”

“Your brother is not constantly lording his position over you!” Stannis snapped. The bird in his lap shifted and cawed in distress. He lowered his voice. “What do you know of any of it? You are an eldest daughter of a great lord. Not a spare.”

She didn’t like the darkness in his tone, and she leaned over to stroke Proudwing’s head gently. The goshawk chirped in response. “I do not think your lord father and lady mother consider you a spare, my lord. Anyone can see that they love you dearly. They are simply excited to welcome their other son home.”

“And why should they welcome him?” Stannis spat. “Because he’s older than me by little over a year! Robert has never been a good son! He’s obstinate and crude and ill-mannered. He has no notion of when to close his mouth and listen and yet they cried to see him off! My father tried to hide it, but I know he cried. And Robert never listened to him a day in his life.”

“He was a misbehaving little boy then,” Edda said. “He’s older now. I’m sure he’s matured a great deal, being away from home, all on his own in the Vale.”

“I could have gone to Dragonstone, served as a squire for cousin Rhaegar the prince! But instead I had to stay, stay and here all about how wonderful Robert is, how much they miss him…,”

“Stannis,” Edda snapped, because his abject misery at the prospect of seeing his brother once again was frightening her, “He is your brother still. You cannot change the way they treat him or you, but you can’t skulk about hating him for the rest of your life!”

Stannis looked shocked at being reprimanded so, by a girl only a year his senior no less, and abruptly opened and closed his mouth before it set in a firm line and he nodded stiffly. “...I suppose you are right.”

“If Lord Robert is as you say, then someone must set the example of how the heir of a great house ought to behave,” Edda exhaled slowly. “After we marry, I will spend the rest of my life here as Robert’s wife and Storm’s End’s lady. I will not… I cannot make peace between the two of you, but I will not settle every squabble that erupts. Be the man Robert should be, if you don’t think he’s capable.”

What else could she say? She couldn’t convince Stannis his brother was a better lordling than he thought when she’d yet to meet him herself. But she needed Stannis on her side, if she was to have allies among the Baratheons. Lord and Lady Baratheon would not always be here, and as Old Nan had once said… husbands were fickle creatures.

To meet her betrothed, Edda dressed in one of her finest gowns, sapphire blue and silken, with silvery blue winter roses stitched all over the bodice and skirt. It was far less practical than what she usually wore, but it made her eyes gleam and emphasized her small waist, although she knew it did no wonders for her small chest. She kept her dark hair down but clipped it back with a silver comb. And waited in the courtyard as the men on horseback rode in and one on a fine black stallion surged ahead. 

Robert Baratheon dismounted as easily as a hardened knight, and with a start she realized he looked far more man than boy, despite being only her age, twelve. He looked closer to fifteen or sixteen and was very tall for his age, taller even than Brandon, she wagered, and stockier as well, with thick muscled arms and the beginnings of a fine, chiseled jaw. His hair was as dark and curly as his father’s, and his eyes just as striking, but there was a different look to them, less calm and more stormy, as if he might burst into laughter or yells at any moment.

You must be brave now, Edda told herself, and straightened slightly, throwing her head back a bit. “My lord,” she said firmly, taking a small step towards him before curtseying, although perhaps not as deeply as she should have. “I am very happy to finally meet you.”

For a moment he said nothing, as if sizing her up as one would an opponent in battle, and then nodded, somewhat awkwardly but graciously enough, and she was relieved he had not forgotten his manners. “And I you, my lady. Tell me, do you like to ride and hunt?”

“Aye, my lord,” she said, although she was not sure what he was getting at. “I… I am Northron, and ladies ride out to hunt with their lord’s parties often enough in the North.”

Robert grinned. “That’s a start, then. I did tell Father and Mother I wouldn’t marry some delicate little thing with no interest in anything but her sewing and dancing.”

“My sewing is passable, my dancing less so,” Edda chanced a small smile. “But there are few delicate things from the North.”

Winter roses, perhaps, were the exception, but she was Eddara Stark, and she was no fleeting winter rose.

Her betrothed laughed then, and it was the sort of the laugh that she couldn’t help but smile at, and she saw now why Robert Baratheon was clearly so loved, despite his ill behavior- he was not one who was easy to dislike. And she saw why Stannis must resent him so.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the course of the next few months Edda learned many things about Robert Baratheon. For example, he had the hands of a commoner and not a lordling. They were rough and calloused and the first few times she had to hold his hand, such as at the great feast held to celebrate his return home, she was taken aback by the feel of him. He looked at her oddly and she flushed, but it was soon forgotten when it was their turn to lead the dancing. 

Robert was not an excellent dancer; Brandon was better, but he was not as stiff as Stannis, and he always seemed to enjoy himself, although she quickly realized he preferred the rowdier foot-stomping songs, rather than the lilting dirges. The second time they danced he lifted her up by the waist with a laugh before setting her back down again. 

Edda, who had never considered herself a dainty girl; Lya had always been the smaller, more delicate, of the two of them; was shocked by his nerve and let out a strangled shriek, clinging onto his arms until she was safely back on the floor. Robert had seemed to enjoy that very much.

He was extremely brave, she noted. He trained as hard as a grown man, and was a good rider as well, although his aim with the bow was awful. He didn’t like swords and seemed to prefer a long hunting knife his foster father, Lord Arryn, had gifted him for his last birthday. And he was an excellent hunter, with a beautiful gyrfalcon named Thunderclap. 

But he was stubborn, she saw, nearly as stubborn as Stannis, and when the two of them butted heads, which was often, it was like watching two stags clash antlers. Robert always said exactly what he meant, and she doubted he could lie if he tried; that, at least, was something Edda, who prized honesty, could admire. But Robert had little patience for anyone, and he was very, very proud, no doubt as a result of years of being told he was one day going to be a great lord.

Lord Steffon and Lady Cassana seemed pleased with his demeanor, though, so she could only assume he had been far worse before being sent off to be fostered. Stannis… well, the first time he and Robert struck out at each other physically rather than verbally was in the training yard while Edda and Barbrey watched; Jonelle hated to see such things and was off sewing with Lady Cassana and a few other ladies. 

Robert knocked Stannis’s blade away from him and shoved the younger boy over into the dirt. Stannis, although the wind had been knocked out of him, scowled and tried to scramble to his feet, lunging for the wooden sword, but Robert scoffed and kicked it away.

“You don’t fight any better than you did last time I visited,” he jeered. “What have you been doing, practicing the harp with Mother?”

“Shut up!” Stannis snapped. 

“I’m going to be your lord,” Robert snorted. “Mind your tongue, little brother.”

The younger brother’s blue eyes grew dark as midnight at that, and snatched up the sword and cracked Robert across the kneecap with it. The older boy swore, staggered, threw down his own weapon, and tackled his brother.

The onlooking men didn’t seem to be keen on doing much about it beside a few half-hearted calls for them to stop, mixed with snickers. Stannis was losing the fist-fight, badly, and already had a bloodied nose. Edda came quickly around the low wall she and Barbrey had been watching from behind and stalked towards them, face set in anger. There was no honor in beating your sibling bloody.

“You’re lucky that little Northron girl who fancies you isn’t here to see me beat you,” Robert was snarling at Stannis, who spat at him in response as they tussled on the ground. “What’s her name again? Jonna?”

“Get off of him,” Edda snapped from behind him, but her betrothed paid her no mind. “Robert! Let him go! You won, stop it!”

When he still did not listen she picked up one of the practice sword and brought it down hard across his shoulder blades. He yelped in pain like an injured dog, letting go of a squirming Stannis who stared up at Edda in shock. The yard was silent. The men watching shifted uneasily, and Barbrey had a hand over her mouth in shock. Edda lowered the wooden sword slowly as Robert got off of his brother and turned around to face her.

For a moment she wondered if he meant to strike her or scream at her for disrespecting him so, especially in public, but the look on his face was almost one of begrudging respect. 

“You hit hard for a skinny girl, my lady,” he said instead, sounding surprised, and the men erupted in relieved laughter.

“My brother taught me before he was old enough to know better,” Edda muttered, and offered him the sword hilt first. “I apologize for striking you, but I didn’t want you to… to do something you’d regret later.”

He snorted, but took the sword. “It’s a coward’s move to go for a man’s legs,” he informed Stannis, who had gotten to his feet as well.

“Better a coward than an oaf,” Stannis hissed, and Edda reluctantly stepped in between them when the look on Robert’s face darkened.

“He only struck out at you like that because you were mocking him, Robert. And Stannis, you’d already lost.”

Robert smirked, but Edda looked at him coolly. “It’s your duty to teach him how to be better, not to torment him. Lord Steffon and your lady mother would say the same.”

He scowled and looked down briefly, and she thought she saw a flash of shame in his eyes.

Edda was not sure whether Robert actually liked her and enjoyed being around her, of if he found her stiff Northron ways amusing, but he did seek her company out often enough. There was nothing romantic about it- he was more likely to flirt with Barbrey or any other maiden that came his way than her- but he enjoyed showing off for Edda, as if seeking her silent approval, and when he offered to take her out rowing she accepted.

The cove they were in was calm enough, but when Robert took them out past the cove the waters were rougher and darker, and Edda stopped trailing her hand in the water.

“Are you sure you can take us back from all this way out?” she asked quietly; they hadn’t spoken much, as she’d preferred to let him concentrate on his rowing while she watched the shore get farther and farther away.

“Of course I can,” he laughed. “I know my way around a pair of oars, Edda.” 

Robert was not one for formality, and only a few weeks after they’d first met he’d begun insisting Edda call him Robert, which she only did when she actually approved of what he was doing, which was fairly rarely. 

It wasn’t that Robert was an awful boy, but he drank and swore and fought and she’d found him kissing serving girls twice now, although he’d had the grace to look embarrassed both times and had apologized to her for seeing it. 

Edda wasn’t very offended; they weren’t wed yet, and she doubted she was his type of girl; too tall and too skinny, although by all accounts he seemed to prefer slender brunettes.

“Are you… do you hate me?” he asked suddenly, where before there had only been the sound of the waves slapping against the sides of the boat and the rasp of the oars. 

It was an unexpectedly vulnerable question from him, and Edda just looked at him for a moment, her hands folded in the skirt of her pale gray dress. “I don’t hate you, Robert,” she finally said. “I don’t always agree with what you say or do, but I don’t hate you. I think… I think you could be a great man, some day.”

He frowned. “You’re the only person to tell me that I could. Not will.”

“Well, that’s up to you, my lord,.”

“I want to,” he said forcefully. “I do. But I can’t be like Father. I’m not suited for the lordship. You know it, Stannis knows it, everyone can see it but Mother and Father. I want it, don’t mistake me, I want it more than anything, I want the people to love me and I want to rule well, but it’s not meant for me, not really. Stannis would be better suited for it, and everyone knows. He’s not like me,” his lip curled slightly in scorn, but Edda thought he was likely being genuine.

“It doesn’t matter. You’re the eldest son. My brother Brandon used to say I should have been born first, and born a man, so I could be lord in his stead. But I wasn’t born first, and I’m not a man. So Winterfell falls to him.” Edda could say this free of any bitterness; there was no sense in holding resentment over something that never could have been. 

“And Storm’s End will fall to you. Your lord father and lady mother are not old and grey yet; you have many years to learn how to be a better lord before it’s your time.”

“And you think I could be,” he said. “A great lord, I mean.”

“Yes,” said Edda firmly, and smiled back when his expression broke into a grin. 

“I knew I’d get a real compliment from you yet, Eddara Stark.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Robert Baratheon,” she teased, and then saw the clouds brewing on the horizon and sucked in a breath.

He turned to look, swore, and started rowing faster in the opposite direction to steer them back towards the cove. 

“It’s coming in fast,” Edda said warily, as the wind picked up, lashing at her hair and face.

“We’ll beat it.”

By the time they coming into the cove the waves were crashing against the small boat and the sky was almost as dark as night, and Edda held onto the sides, for fear of losing her balance. “Robert-,”

“As soon as we’re past these rocks the waves will die down-,”

A wave surged up under the boat and flipped it like a child and a toy.

Edda didn’t even have time to scream before she was thrown into the roiling, dark water. She could swim, not well, but she knew how to keep herself from drowning, but this was not calm water, and it was freezing cold. Her skirts and boots were dragging her down every time she tried to surface, and it was hard to tell where she was with the waves constantly crashing over her head. 

She’d managed to kick one boot off when a wave slammed her up against a nearby rock, and stunned, she began to sink again, head throbbing and ears ringing.

An arm wrapped itself around her waist and heaved her up and over, and as Edda sputtered and coughed she realized she was back in the boat, which had been righted again. Robert held onto the edge, water running down his face. “Are you alright?” he shouted over the roar of the wind and waves, and she nodded weakly as he kicked the boat further into the cove.

When the waves did let up some as they got closer to land he climbed over the side himself, and rowed them back with one oar, the other having been lost. It only sunk in that he had both nearly gotten them killed and saved their lives in the span of a few minutes when they were in the shallows. Edda, teeth chattering and shaking violently, stumbled out of the battered boat and sat on the wet sand.

“Come on,” Robert pulled her up to her feet. “We have to get inside, you’ll take ill from the cold-,”

“I can stand the cold,” she snapped, and impulsively shoved him. “You’re a fool! What were you thinking, taking us so far from shore! We could have drowned!”

“Baratheons don’t drown,” he insisted. “And we got back alright-,”

“Robert,” she hissed, and his mouth opened and closed. “I almost died. The waves would have smashed me into the rocks or I would have drowned.”

“But I saved you!”

“You shouldn’t have had to!” She walked slowly towards their frantically neighing horses, who were eager to be off of the beach. 

Robert quickly caught up with her and helped her mount, keeping one hand on her reins, as Edda was too weak to do much more than hold onto Marna tightly so she didn’t topple off. Lady Cassana gave her son a tongue-lashing the likes of which Edda had never seen from the quiet, gentle woman, and Lord Steffon was furious, but Edda saw far less of that, laid up in bed sick for two weeks after with a terrible cold.

When it had finally passed she awoke late one afternoon to see Barbrey, Jonelle, and Stannis at her bedside. Barbrey was sewing and Stannis was reading from one of his books to Jonelle, who looked enthralled by whatever it was. Edda blinked blearily.

“And so the princess awoke from her slumber,” Barbrey said sarcastically, and felt her forehead. “You feel fine to me.”

“Edda!” Jonelle exclaimed, and took her limp hand. “Everyone was so worried about you!”

“Oh.” Edda straightened up a bit, and glanced over at the table near the side of her bed. A pair of new leather boots sat on it.

“Robert had them made for you, to replace the ones that got ruined when he nearly drowned you” Stannis said balefully. “I told him girls probably like flowers or dresses better, but he wouldn’t listen, of course.”

Edda looked at them. She had never been one for pretty flowers or silks. “No… I like these,” she said hoarsely, and in spite of herself, smiled a little.


	6. Chapter 6

Before the tourney at Lannisport, Edda had never attended anything of the sort before. The North had few knights, and consequently very few tourneys, if any at all- most of the proud Northron lords scoffed at the idea of them, believing that the only true measure of a warrior’s worth was in battle. Edda had never cared much one way or the other, thinking jousting silly, but Lya had always bemoaned the fact that she might never see one.

“I’m sure they would be happy to have you enter the melee,” Edda had once told her dryly, and been rewarded with a glare. 

Truthfully, she was surprised when the Baratheons announced their intent to attend, and she with them, but she supposed it made sense, since the tourney was being held in honor of Prince Viserys, and they were cousins to the Targaryens. 

Robert was happy to go but upset because he not yet knighted and could not participate, and Stannis didn’t seem very pleased to be leaving home to travel west. Barbrey and Jonelle were obviously excited, however, and Edda went along with it for them. She knew she would not see her own family there, but she had never been to Lannisport before, and after they returned back to Storm’s End Robert would be going back to the Vale and she and her ladies home to the North.

Edda was thirteen now and liked to believe she looked a little more womanly; she was taller and had a few more curves- but she still thought it evident that of the three of them, Barbrey was the prettiest, and she was only eleven. Barbrey had already been kissed by some squire from a minor house of the Stormlands, and had raved about it for weeks afterwards, subtly digging in the fact that Edda was betrothed and had yet to be kissed herself. 

Edda was not a jealous girl and wasn’t very bothered by it, although she had warned Barbrey not to disgrace herself- Lady Cassana was fond of her and Jonelle, but would not hesitate to send her home if she thought her improper. Barbrey had been slightly chastened by the scolding, and proclaimed that she loved Brandon, anyways, and was sure his kisses were much sweeter. Edda had wrinkled her nose and changed the subject.

Jonelle and Stannis were quite close, and Edda was happy for them- Stannis made Jonelle a bit braver, and Jonelle made Stannis a bit kinder. Barbrey teased the younger girl viciously about her ‘mooning over’ the second Baratheon son, but Edda usually interceded, and Jonelle was too young and innocent to react with anything other than blushing and shy stammers. 

It was a good month of travel out of the Stormlands, across the fragant Reach, and towards the western coast, where Lannisport sat, in the shadow of Casterly Rock. The riding was easy enough and in a sort of last hurrah of childhood, Edda raced horses with Robert and Barbrey and Martyn and Ethan and slept under the twinkling stars. It was summer turning into fall and things were beautiful, and Edda remembered it for a long time afterwards, the sweet smell of the hay in fields and the warm wind tickling the back of her neck.

The night before they arrived in Lannisport Robert kissed her behind the wheelhouse, and Edda, who had been laughing with him a few moments earlier, did not know how to feel or what to say. She found herself going over every conversation they’d ever had, looking for signs that he was anything more than fond of her, and desperately tried to convince herself that it had been some whim. 

Robert had been sullen ever since, because while she hadn’t pushed him away, she hadn’t kissed him back, either, and had simply hurried away when he finally stopped. Lord and Lady Baratheon looked askance after both of them the following morning, as the Baratheon household settled into the manse they would be staying at for the week’s duration of the tourney, but Edda said nothing and Robert made himself scarce.

Lannisport was a great city, shielded by walls and a well-protected harbor, and seemingly encased in gold. It glinted in the sunshine so brightly that it hurt Edda’s eyes. It was beautiful and well-maintained, but felt ill at ease there, in what seemed the exact opposite of the North. She’d never seen so many blondes in her life.

The queen and the infant prince were not in attendance at the tourney; the king came alone with his heir, Prince Rhaegar, who had just been made a knight and who would ride in the lists. Edda only saw the king and prince briefly, presented to them along with the Baratheons, but it was clear that King Aerys’ paranoia had aged him the way war aged most men, and that the prince was gallant and courteous, the opposite of his sire. He was also incredibly handsome, and even Edda found herself speechless, while Barbrey turned bright red beside her and Jonelle stared at the ground.

Lady Cassana encouraged her to make the acquaintance of Cersei Lannister and some of the other young noble girls of the westerlands who were present, but Edda disliked Lord Tywin’s daughter instantly. She was arrogant and spiteful, and had a temper that rivaled that of Brandon or Lya’s, from what Edda could see of it. The younger girl was annoyed that her twin brother, Jaime, was off with Robert and Stannis and some of the other young men, and obsessed with the idea of becoming Prince Rhaegar’s bride.

“My aunt told me I will be queen some day,” the golden haired girl said, examining a peach in her delicate hand while Edda desperately wished to be anywhere else. Barbrey brooded beside her, her dislike for Cersei evident by the expression on her face, which was tinged towards a near-sneer, and Jonelle sat timidly in her seat, afraid of rousing Cersei’s ire. She’d already snapped at her ‘dearest friends’, a plump girl of ten named Jeyne Farman, and a skinny, freckled girl of eleven named Melara Hetherspoon.

“I thought the Targaryens only married each other,” Barbrey interjected slyly, popping a ripe grape into her mouth and chewing a bit more obnoxiously than necessary.

Jonelle seemed to restrain a giggle- perhaps she’d grown bolder than Edda had realized, as of late.

“There are no Targaryen women for him to marry,” Cersei snapped. “Of course, you wouldn’t know that, coming from the ignorant North.” Her eyes flickered over their gowns, which, although Southron in cut and finely made, where in muted Northron colors. “How awful, that you must return there soon.”

“Eddara is going to be the Lady of Storm’s End and husband to a cousin of the king,” Barbrey sniped back. “She’s already more Targaryen than you.”

Melara smirked a bit at that, although she did not let Cerse see it.

Cersei reared back in fury like a snake about to strike, and Edda interceded before it came to blows or worse. “Barbrey, apologize to Lady Cersei this instant,” she snapped. “She is our hostess, and should be respected as such.”

Barbrey’s gritted, far from genuine apology was accepted with a cool nod from the younger girl, and later as they took their places in the stands to cheer on the few Northron men participating, Edda let her have it.

“You shouldn’t have said that to her. She looked like she wanted to strangle you with her bare hands,” she said coldly to Barbrey, who didn’t look very fazed.

“She might develop a callus doing that,” she scoffed. “No, that one’s more like to try to poison me. Remind me not to touch anything if we’re eating anywhere near her.”

“She was being awful,” Jonelle agreed with an apologetic look. “She had no right to speak that way even- even if she is from a great house. She was even rude to you, Edda!”

“She’s a little girl,” said Edda, although she was only Cersei’s senior by three years. “A spoiled little girl used to getting her way and being fawned over by everyone. Let her think and say what she wants, but don’t go around making an enemy out of her! Gods forbid she be queen someday and I have to come to court.”

Rhaegar Targaryen rode well in the lists, unseating two Lannisters, twelve knights, and the renowned Ser Barristan Selmy. He was only defeated by Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, who was only eighteen, and the victor crowned his sister Ashara Queen of Love and Beauty. The Dornish girl was a year older than Edda and already very beautiful, with exotic violet eyes and lovely long dark hair. 

On that final night of the tourney, two things of note occurred; Edda saved a girl’s life, and talked to her betrothed for the first time in a week.

She was walking with Barbrey, Jonelle, and Stannis when they heard a faint sound, and Edda stopped for a moment, listening intently until she heard it again. “A girl’s screaming,” she said in surprise, looking around, and Stannis gamely drew the short sword he was allowed to carry. 

“There’s no one here.” Barbrey gestured around the quiet courtyard they were passing through, but Jonelle broke into a run, lifting her pale pink skirts.

“Jonelle!” Stannis shouted, but she only stopped at the well at the other end, bracing her small hands on the sides and peering down into the gloom. Then she shrieked and drew back.

The others ran over, and Edda squinted down into the dark to make out a pale, freckled face struggling to remain above the water. “It’s Melara,” she gasped. 

“Go get someone,” Stannis told Barbrey quickly, and the girl for once did not argue but raced off, screeching for help.

Edda looked around desperately for something to throw down to the girl to help her float or to pull her up with, and her eyes landed on the well bucket. She undid the rope and hurriedly started to lower it, and Stannis helped, suspending it just above the flailing, gasping girl.

“Grab on!” Edda called down to her, and while Melara’s grip slipped the first time, she got a better hold the second, and was able to hold the upper half of her body out of the dark water for the time being, although it was clear she wouldn’t be able to stay like that forever.

“We’re not strong enough to pull her up,” Stannis said soberly, looking over to Edda and Jonelle, but Barbrey had returned, panting and out of breath, with Martyn Cassel, and between the lot of them, they managed to get the soaked, shivering girl up and out of the well. 

Melara doubled over and retched up water once she was on the ground, and she was bruised and somewhat dazed from her fall. She was silent and shaken, and when Martyn demanded to know ‘how in the Seven she’d fallen down a bloody well’, she only began to sob. 

Edda would not have thought much of it, only that the girl was lucky they’d happened to be there, or she’d have drowned alone and in the dark, had she not encountered Cersei Lannister later, who, far from her usual prideful self, seemed unnerved by something, and stared at the wet, dirty patches on Edda’s moss green gown, mouth slightly agape.

“We just pulled your friend out of a well,” Barbrey informed the girl flatly, but she said nothing, only looked at them before hurrying away.

“She must be worried for poor Melara,” Jonelle commented optimistically, but Barbrey snorted.

“She looked like a cat who just got bit on the nose by a mouse.”

Edda said nothing, for there was something in the girl’s look… Whatever it was, it had made Edda feel immensely glad that they were leaving tomorrow morning, and that she would not be seeing Cersei Lannister again in the foreseeable future. 

And then there was Robert, who she found hovering outside her and the other girls’ room like a disgruntled moth to a light. 

“This isn’t proper,” she told him a bit snidely, but Barbrey simply rolled her eyes and dragged a gaping Jonelle into the chambers with her, closing the door firmly behind and leaving the two of them out in the darkened hall.

“I don’t care if it’s proper or not,” Robert snapped back, a flush rising in his cheeks. “You’re my betrothed, and I’m allowed to speak with you-,”

“You didn’t want to do much speaking the last time we were left alone together,” Edda hissed, and he scowled.

“I thought you- I thought you might have at least liked it,” he muttered. “Instead you acted like- like I was some bloody serving boy, and ran off-,”

“You didn’t ask,” Edda hissed. “You can’t just- we were discussing horses, of all things, and then you suddenly kiss me like you’ve gone mad-,”

“I didn’t go mad, I thought you looked pretty and that I wanted to kiss you,” he practically snarled, grabbing her hands in his own, and Edda almost tore them away, but was too shocked to do anything but stare.

“You… you thought I looked pretty?” she repeated slowly.

“Yes! Am I allowed to?” he asked peevishly, dropping her hands.

“I don’t know,” she snapped, irritated again, “You’ve never said anything of the sort before-,”

“I didn’t know you before!”

“Well, you’ve kissed plenty of girls without knowing them-,”

He kissed her again, and Edda hit his chest, albeit more weakly than she could or should have, because he was a very good kisser, although she supposed she had nothing else to compare it to, and this time she kissed him back, leaning up on her tiptoes and digging her fingers into his solid shoulders before letting go.

“I don’t want to kiss girls I don’t know,” he said, a bit breathlessly, and it did send a thrill down Edda’s spine to think she was the cause of it. “Not anymore, not in a long time- I’ve wanted to kiss you for ages, I don’t know why, I just- You’re different,” he finally settled on, rather lamely.

Edda frowned. “If this is just because I wasn’t desperately in love with you from the start-,”

“It’s not that! I- I feel different around you,” he admitted. “About you. I… I want to- I want you to like me,” he said, hands curling into fists at his sides as if he were ashamed to admit it and wanted very badly to hit something. 

“I do like you, don’t be ridiculous,” Edda said, but touched one of his fists with her own hand gently. 

He looked up at her seriously. “I know I’m not the sort of man you’d want to marry if you had the choice-,”

“What type of man would that be?” she asked with a small, wry smile.

“I don’t know! Someone… quiet and… and scholarly,” he shrugged roughly. “I know I’m not the most clever or- or serious- but I will be a good husband, Edda. I promise. And I want to be a good lord- I won’t ever shame you or ignore you, and you can raise our children to worship the old gods if you like-,”

It was Edda’s turn to kiss him into silence then, and when they drew apart they were both smiling and red-faced.

There were the sound of footsteps further down the hall. “Robert?” Stannis called distantly, sounding annoyed. “Where did you put my copy of-,”

Robert groaned quietly under his breath, but brightened somewhat when Edda grabbed and squeezed his hand briefly. “I’ll see you in the morning, then. We’ll see if I don’t outride you again.”

“Not a chance,” he snorted, blue eyes gleaming in the torchlight, and she slipped into the chamber as he stalked down the hall to argue with his aggravated younger brother.


	7. Chapter 7

When Edda left Storm’s End to return to Winterfell, she left with the knowledge that she’d kissed her betrothed a bit more frequently than was necessarily proper and that Lady Cassana was with child. 

The woman had not even been showing any symptoms that Edda was aware with when she took her aside to tell her, looking as though she could hardly believe it herself. “I had to tell someone else- the only ones who know are Maester Cressen and Steffon,” Cassana said almost giddily for a grown woman, before embracing Edda. 

Edda freely hugged her back; the woman had become akin to a mother to her, and she’d been without a mother for so long that Cassana’s easy affection was too much to pass up.

“By the time you see me again there’ll be another member of the family. A goodbrother or goodsister for you, although I’m hoping for a girl this time,” she confessed with a smile. “Don’t say a word to Robert or Stannis, I want to tell them after you and your ladies leave, to lift their spirits. They’ll be lost without you.”

The wedding date had been tentatively set for the year 279 of Aegon’s Conquest, and while Edda had not expected to find herself both morose at the prospect of leaving Storm’s End and eager for her wedding to come sooner, but that was what she was. She did not cry, which she was proud of, for Jonelle was quite weepy and even cool Barbrey seemed a bit quieter than usual. 

“I’ll write you,” she’d promised Robert the morning they were set to sail. “Even if you won’t read them.”

“I’d read letters from you,” he protested, and looked altogether far too pleased when she impulsively pecked him on the cheek.

“Safe voyage, Lady Eddara,” he said in a grave impression of his father then, and Edda fought back a smile.

“Until we meet again, my lord.”

When Edda returned home she knew she’d changed- that aside from being older and taller that she was different now, more adventurous, more confident, used to speaking her mind and being heard- but she had not anticipated that her siblings would be changed as well.

Brandon was betrothed, for one, to Catelyn Tully, from the Riverlands. Edda had never met the girl, but Father and Brandon had apparently paid the Tullys a visit in her absence, and while Brandon did not seem thrilled with the idea of marriage on the horizon, and Barbrey was livid, Edda hoped it might put an end to her brother’s wenching. Brandon had enough sense to be discreet about it, but every barmaid and tavern whore in the Winter Town seemed to know him, judging by their smiles when they rode past. 

Father was supposedly considering matches for Lyanna as well, but her sister feigned ignorance and only wanted to speak of Edda’s travels and the tourney at Lannisport and if she’d seen any sea monsters while at Storm’s End. Lya had grown- she was was still a bit coltish, but it was obvious she’d be a beautiful young woman by the time she was Edda’s age- but while she was a bit more restrained, she acted much the same.

Benjen was as sweet and quiet as ever, and still able to catch Edda’s exasperated looks at their siblings’ antics and make her laugh. 

Father was as severe and grim as usual, but he did seem pleased that she was evidently happy with her betrothal and that she’d gotten a taste of Southron life. 

“I knew you would do well there,” he said over dinner the night she returned home, and Edda smiled.

“I enjoyed my time with the Baratheons very much, Father.”

“The Young Stag melted some of Edda’s ice,” Brandon mocked with a grin, and she rolled her eyes good-naturedly while Lyanna and Benjen snickered.

“How do you really feel about your betrothal?” she asked Brandon later, in the godswood, where the Stark siblings routinely met to escape prying eyes. The last time they had all been there together they had been just children, but now she and Brandon were nearly grown, and Lya and Ben not far behind them. 

He shrugged his shoulders impassively, clearly uncomfortable, and Lyanna snorted from her sprawled out position up against the rock Benjen was sitting on cross-legged. “He doesn’t want to marry a fish out of water.”

“You should mind the way you speak of your future goodsister,” Edda scolded, and there was some real bite to it this time- she and Lya were still close, but it was hard for them be close in the same way. She felt so much older now, and Lya seemed so young and naive, painfully immature. 

The younger girl glowered and simply shot a look at Brandon, who groaned. “I suppose I needs marry some time, but I’d rather it have been to someone Northron, not some delicate Southron flower.”

“The Riverlands are barely Southron compared to other places,” Edda said dryly. “If you had only seen Lannisport- it was absolutely absurd, the fashions and the airs they all put on-,”

“Don’t brag now,” Lya said sullenly, and Edda trailed off irritably.

“Little Barbrey looked aghast when she heard it,” Brandon remarked in a lighter tone, a slight smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“She is eleven now,” Edda pointed out. “And thinks herself very much a lady after our travels. She’s half in love with you-,”

“Her father puts her up to it,” Brandon laughed. “I wager Lord Ryswell’s not pleased that Father his marrying his heir off to a Southron girl. And if Lyanna marries-,”

“Shut up,” their sister snapped darkly. “I’m not marrying anyone.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ben, it’ll be up to you to find a proper Northron girl, eh?”

The little boy wrinkled his nose, looking down at them from his rock. “I’m glad there aren’t many girls at Old Castle. Just Sybelle, and she’s only five.”

Edda laughed, laying back on the mossy ground, staring up at the budding trees overhead.

Months passed.

Edda did her best to console Barbrey, who was still pining after Brandon, and Jonelle, who she suspected was as in love as a girl of nearly ten could be with a boy like Stannis Baratheon. She rode out with her sister, enjoyed the lightened load of lessons from Septa, now that she was about as well-trained in the running of a household as she could be, and wrote to Robert. 

Sometimes he wrote back, and although his letters were nowhere near as long and detailed as hers, he spoke of things he missed- hearing her laugh, racing her on horseback, building massive fortresses out of sand on the beach with her and the others, even Stannis. He was the one who told of her his brother’s birth- Renly, the boy was named, and he was apparently the happiest babe to grace Westeros, always smiling, always looking pleased about something.

‘I look forward to meeting Storm’s End’s Smiling Lord at our wedding’ Edda wrote back, and ignored Lya’s taunts as she sent off yet another raven to the Vale.

And then there was Duskendale, shortly after Edda celebrated her fourteenth nameday. 

Rumors had abounded that the Darklyns were refusing to pay their taxes, in open defiance of the King, but it had been assumed that Tywin Lannister would soon take them to task and the squabble would be settled. Instead, they captured King Aerys. It dragged on, and on, and in the North, popular opinion seemed to be that Tywin Lannister was likely hoping the Darklyns would kill the king, so he might rule instead.

“The crown would go to Prince Rhaegar,” Edda countered when Martyn Cassel broached the subject with a knowing look. “He’s of age now, and the smallfolk love him.”

“Aye, but Tywin Lannister has been the king in truth for years now,” Ethan Glover countered with a shrug. “And the people fear him more than they love the prince.”

For six months the seven kingdoms held one collective breath, until word came that the king had been rescued and unleashed a terrible vengeance on the Darklyns and everyone kin to them, from the littlest babe to the oldest crone. 

“Is it true he had Lord Darklyn’s wife burned alive?” Lyanna queried with a disgusted, fascinated expression at the table one night.

“That is nothing to be discussed during a meal, Lyanna,” Lord Rickard snapped. “It is not our place to question the Iron Throne’s judgment.”

“They all sound mad,” Lya huffed. “They could have just killed the men who took him, instead of everyone.”

“They had to make an example,” Brandon said, cutting into his meat pie. “They committed treason. What did they think would happen?”

Benjen looked vaguely ill. 

“Let’s not speak anymore of it,” Edda said swiftly, seeing the look on their father’s face, and the Starks descended into silence once more.

Edda might not have thought of Duskendale much after that, had her future goodparents not been summoned to court by the king a month later. Robert wrote that Lord Steffon had been named to the Small Council and that he and Lady Cassana were being sent to find Prince Rhaegar a bride with Valyrian blood- an impossible task, by the sound of it.

‘But they say my father may be Hand of the King when he returns, for the King suspects Lord Tywin of treachery,’ Robert wrote, ‘Even if he says he will never accept the position. And Mother is upset to leave Stannis and Renly, but she says she will keep the wedding preparations in mind all the while, and to give you her very best.’

Edda did not know why the letter made her feel such unease, but it did, and she could not have known what would come of it- how could she have? She pushed it aside in favor of indulging in her hopes of what her marriage would be like, of a return to Storm’s End, of seeing Robert and Stannis again, and while she had thought that her childhood, which could be likened to soft, freshly fallen snow, perhaps a summer snow, had ended with her betrothal and first trip south, she had been wrong. Her childhood would end months later in Shipbreaker Bay, although she was not there to see it sink with the ship that drifted down in shattered pieces of wreckage to the ocean floor.


	8. Chapter 8

Much had changed by the time the Baratheon brothers traveled north for Edda and Robert’s wedding. At sixteen Edda was, she hoped, less gawky than she had been at twelve or even thirteen- she was still tall and slender, and plain of face, but when she smiled, although she did not realize it, her usually severe expression softened into something almost winsome. 

“You have your lady mother’s look,” her father told her gruffly a few days before the wedding guests were due to begin arriving, and Edda had looked at him in shock, for Rickard Stark had not mentioned his wife in years.

“Lyanna is far prettier,” she finally said, when she found the words, “But it’s kind of you to say so, Father.”

“Lyanna’s looks may be praised more,” he said with a frown, “But you are all Lyarra when you smile, daughter.”

Edda flushed slightly and bobbed her head in acceptance of the compliment, although it warmed her to think that she in some way reminded her father of his long dead wife. He had never remarried, despite still being young enough when she had passed away, and his lords knew better than to pressure him to do so, and Edda knew that he missed her every day.

She missed Mother too, but she almost missed Lady Cassana more, although it pained her to think it- Cassana Baratheon had been no real kin of hers, but the woman had treated her as a daughter all the same, and Edda had wept like a child when she’d learned of her death. 

When Mother had died she had been so young, only five- that she had mostly reacted with numb shock and then learned to move past it. The pain from the deaths of Lord and Lady Baratheon was still raw, although it had been a full year.

She could only imagine what Robert and Stannis were going through, but neither had wanted to speak of it in the letters exchanged since then, and she could not blame them. 

Still, she was to be married, and this should be a happy time, so she did her best to focus on the present, not past hurts. Winterfell was in a flurry of activity, as there had not been a wedding held there since the marriage of her own parents nearly two decades earlier, and it was hard to be very solemn when she was surrounded by excited young women of her own age, all envious of her for being one of the first to wed. 

The only wedding of any significance in the past several years had been that of Barbrey’s older sister Bethany, a sweet, shy girl, to Roose Bolton, whose first wife had died barely a year into their marriage. Wild rumors abounded that the young lord of the Dreadfort had had her flayed for displeasing him, but Father said it was nonsense and that the girl had died of a sudden illness.

Barbrey was betrothed to Willam Dustin, her father’s back-up, Edda supposed, since Brandon was out of her reach, but the two bothered very little with one another, and she’d caught her brother and the Ryswell in the stables kissing at least once. She would have scolded Barbrey for it, but Willam was no more loyal, and Barbrey was only fourteen. Edda accepted that a girl like Barbrey was unlikely to be willing to meekly wait for her future husband to turn to her in the meanwhile.

Jonelle was twelve and not yet flowered, which Edda had assured her was nothing to despair over, although Jonelle seemed disinterested in any of the eligible young men they found themselves around. As far as Edda was aware, she and Stannis still exchanged letters, unbeknownst to her father, who was too busy with his new young wife to notice. 

Lyanna, now thirteen, was newly betrothed to Elbert Arryn, who was eighteen and heir to the Vale. Edda had asked after him to Robert, who had simply said that Elbert was a bit bookish but a good man who’d likely be a good husband. Lya did not appear at all enthused with the match, insistent that she should have been betrothed to a Northron lordling instead, and Edda would have almost suspected she had her eyes on someone, had it not been patently obvious that her sister’s one true love was either horses or swords. 

Edda had no great passion for sewing, but had trudged through the work on her maiden cloak for the past several months, and was pleased with how it had turned out, purew white with a soft grey wolf on the back, trimmed with white ermine fur. She was looking it over when she heard the sound of guests riding in, and her breath caught in her throat when she rushed out to the courtyard and saw Robert.

He broke into a broad grin at the sight of her as he dismounted, and Edda restrained herself from doing something ridiculous like rushing to him and throwing her arms around his neck. They hadn’t seen each other in three years, and she was not so naive as to think that just because they had shared kisses and sweet words then that he-

But he came forward and lifted her off the ground, whirling her around, his callused hands on her slim hips, and she threw her head back and laughed in spite of herself, her fingers digging into his shoulders before he set her down on the ground. 

She flushed a violent shade of red, for a good portion of the yard was watching them with amused looks and there were a few whistles from some of the men, although she was immensely grateful that by the time her father appeared she had since stepped a slightly more appropriate distance away from her betrothed.

Barbrey, however, kept shooting her mocking looks, her eyebrows arching so high they appeared to be trying to escape her brow entirely, while Lyanna looked exasperated and kept rolling her eyes and huffing impatiently.

Jonelle appeared to only have eyes for Stannis, who was steadfast refusing to meet her gaze. Edda noted that while Robert appeared much the same, having already looked so much older when she’d last seen him, Stannis truly looked more man than boy now, and while he would never be a handsome man, he had the striking Baratheon eyes and the same strong jawline as his brother and father. 

Edda was disappointed to learn that Renly had been left behind at Storm’s End, but the boy was only two, and too young to travel such a distance, and she would see him once they returned to Storm’s End all the same. She would have liked to have a chance to talk to Robert privately, but over the next few days there was far too much going and far too little time to do it in, and she only saw him at meals, where they were surrounded by other boisterous young people, and even worse, her siblings. She would have to wait until their wedding feast, she supposed.

It was raining lightly on the day of the wedding, which most Southroners would have said was bad luck- it rained or worse, snowed, too often in the North for them to hold such superstitions- but the Stormlanders who had arrived with their liege lord seemed to believe it was good luck, Elenei blessing the marriage.

Besides, it was autumn, and she was grateful it had not yet begun to seriously snow, although there was a thin layer of sleet and slush on the muddy ground. Her ladies carefully held up her maiden cloak for her as they approached the godswood- Winterfell had no sept, and she was grateful Robert had not insisted they be married in one- they would get the blessing of a septon in White Harbor before they left the North.

The godswood was still and silent, although the Southroners shifted uneasily, while the Northroners were perfectly calm. The old gods had no priests, nor even any specific prayers, but Edda knew the marriage rites and Father was there to conduct them after he led her to the tree where Robert waited. 

Edda’s dress in the Northron style, made of wool rather than satin or silk, and a simpler cut than any Southron gown, but it was white as fresh snow and her veil was dotted with silvery pearls. There was yellow autumn crocus and goldenrod tucked into her dark hair. Robert looked slightly stunned at the sight of her, as if he could not quite reconcile this image with the girl he’d known- knew, she reminded herself. He knew her. She took pleasure in it all the same. It was not often that Robert Baratheon was speechless.

“Are you Eddara Stark, firstborn daughter of Rickard and Lyarra Stark, here to take this man as your husband?” Father asked her gravely.

Edda nodded. “I am she.”

“And are you Robert Baratheon, firstborn son of Steffon and Cassana Baratheon, here to take this woman as your wife?” he asked Robert, and something in the young man’s face stiffened as in reaction to a blow, but he nodded.

“I am he.”

“I am Rickard Stark, lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, here to give away this woman of her own free will as your wife,” he continued. He looked to Edda and something almost akin to a smile wavered on his face as he went on. “Do you take this man as your husband?”

“Aye,” said Edda. “Of my own free will, I take this man to be my own.” She was glad that her voice came out strong and firm. Brides were expected to be a bit teary-eyed and weepy in the South, but in the North a marriage was considered a farce if one partner was clearly reluctant or coerced.

Rickard looked to Robert. “Do you take this woman as your wife?”

“Of my own free will, I take this woman to be my own,” he said calmly.

Edda took Robert’s hands in her own, feeling as though they were burning her own even through her gloves, and the two kneeled simultaneously on the ground before the weirwood, lowering their heads in prayer. Edda prayed for a good marriage, one like Lord Steffon and Lady Cassana’s had been, one that would only strengthen as time went on.

Then the few moments of kneeling had passed, and they rose as one. Father did not remove her cloak- Robert did so, slowly undoing the clasp and putting on her gold and black bridal cloak. They turned to face the onlookers.

“In the eyes of the gods, I say this man and woman are husband and wife, sharing the same cloak and the same bed,” Father finished the ceremony, and scattered applause and well-wishes rang out as Robert scooped her into his arms- Edda suspected he’d been a little too pleased to hear that it was customary for the groom to carry the bride in his arms out of the godswood and into the hall for the wedding feast.

“Eddara Baratheon,” he said with some satisfaction as they walked, the crowd laughing and jubilant behind the, eager to be out of the cold. “I knew I would like the sound of that.”

He was teasing her already, Edda realized, and she shook her head in amusement. “Just hurry up and get us out of this rain. Wet wool is not something I wish to sit in for the next several hours.

“As my lady insists,” Robert said somewhat devilishly, and broke into a breakneck run, causing her to yelp and cling to him while the wedding guests jeered behind them, giving pursuit.  
“Robert!” she hissed, although she was grinning in spite of herself as they came through the doors and into the warm hall. “You can let me down now.”

“What kind of husband makes his wife walk to her seat in wet wool?” he demanded with a snort, and ended up setting her down gently in her seat at the head table.

The wedding coincided with the traditional timing of the harvest feast, and there was so much food that Edda felt as though she simultaneously ate far too much and next to nothing at all. Although she was loathe to admit it, part of her was all too eager for the dancing, because it made her insides twist and turn in all sorts of pleasant ways when she danced with Robert, and her feet barely skimmed the ground.

She did not dance with just him, of course- after their first dance as husband and wife she danced with her father, who told her she made a regal bride, and Brandon, who told her she’d been grinning like a fool when she thought no one was looking, ignoring the swat she gave him, and Benjen, who had a wealth of raunchy jokes he’d picked up from some Southron squire, prompting another swat- and then Stannis, who was as stiff a dancer as ever but whom was clearly trying his best.

“You should dance with Jonelle next,” she encouraged him quietly, and raised an eyebrow at the reproachful look her gave her.

“It wouldn’t be- proper,” he finally settled on. “She’s too familiar with me-,”

“Stannis Baratheon, do you mean to tell me you care nothing for that girl?” Edda demanded indignantly.

He flushed in spite of his scowl. “I- What I feel is unimportant, we are not betrothed, and we’re not children anymore, the friendship she believes we have is no longer appropriate-,”

“Her father is here tonight, and I am sure he would be more than happy to-,”

“Robert determines who I wed,” Stannis snapped. “Not me.”

“Robert knows you care a great deal for her,” Edda pointed out.

“Robert must think of other things first besides his brother’s feelings,” said Stannis irritably. “Our lords would not be pleased with both of us marrying Northron-,”

“Then promise them that Renly will choose a bride from the Stormlands,” she reasoned. “You have a right to be happy.”

The song was coming to an end, and Stannis said nothing, glancing away, blue eyes darker than usual. Edda sighed and squeezed his shoulder fondly. “Think on it before we leave. I would be happy to put it Robert myself-,”

“Edda,” he said suddenly, looking up at her almost urgently. “There is something-,”

“What is it?” she asked, slightly startled at his intensity. 

Stannis opened his mouth as if to continue, but then hesitated and shook his head. “It… it matters not now. Never mind.”

“Stannis,” Edda said in exasperation, “Don’t-,”

But then Willam Dustin was asking her to dance, and after him Ethan Glover, and then Martyn Cassel, and even cold Roose Bolton, and whatever Stannis had wanted to tell her was forgotten by the time the dancing had finally died down and the call for the bedding went up. 

Edda, although she never would have admitted it, was frightened when the men all seemed to descend on her, especially the Umbers, who everyone said were notoriously wild with women, but then Brandon was by her side, throwing her over his broad shoulder like an unruly child, and she was less frightened and more annoyed, for her veil was pulled off, and the flowers that had been in her hair scattered across the floor, and by the time she was deposited in their chambers her bridal cloak had been torn off as well, and half the back of her dress undone.

She sighed and sat down on the bed, a mixture of tired and giddy and nervous, as the sound of women laughing grew louder until Robert was shoved inside the room, shirtless and breeches undone.

“That Barbrey,” he laughed, shaking his head, “She is-,”

He turned to look at her and grew very quiet and still, and Edda wondered what was wrong. “Are you alright?” She rose, ignoring the prickle of cool air on her exposed back. 

“I’ve never been better,” Robert said after a moment, staring at her. “You- You’re very beautiful, Edda, is all. Even more beautiful without the veil and the flowers and the cloak.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said dismissively. “We both know that I-,”

But then he was kissing her, and Edda only found herself pulling away from him once, to say irritably, “When will you learn to stop interrupting me like that?”, before backing onto the bed, ignoring the chuckles that reverberated deep in his naked chest, under the hand she had splayed there.


	9. Chapter 9

When Edda first beheld her husband’s bastard she was seven months pregnant with his child, and the bastard girl perhaps five months old, struggling to crawl on the rough floor of the little cottage. The babe had a shock of dark hair already and piercing blue eyes, and had Edda not known that her own child would be born looking much the same, it would have hurt to look upon the little girl.

“Mya Stone,” she repeated, looking to the girl’s mother for confirmation. Darya, she had said her name was, with dusty blonde hair and a thin, freckled face, perhaps a few years older than Edda. The daughter of a shepherd. 

Robert stood near the door, steadily avoiding looking at either woman, although he could not help but stare at the child on the floor. 

“Aye, milady,” the woman muttered, wrapping her arms around her middle. “Begging your pardons, milady, for shaming you so. I didn’t…,” she trailed off weakly at the look on Edda’s face.

“My lord and I will speak outside for a few moments, if you’ll excuse us,” Edda said stiffly, and followed a still silent Robert out into the cold.

She had began to suspect Robert was hiding something from her when she told him of her pregnancy, overjoyed and then crestfallen when his smiles seemed forced and his eyes distant. He had finally confessed it to her, drunkenly, a month prior, and although they had fought over her insistence at seeing his bastard daughter for herself, he had eventually given in. Edda had not quite believed it herself until she’d laid eyes upon little Mya Stone. 

Part of her had hoped that he was mistaken, that the girl he’d fallen into bed with, drunk and grieving his parents’s deaths, was lying. But it was clear as the day that there was no mistake, no lie. Mya was his daughter. His oldest child, now and forever. 

Robert had apologized. Profusely. More than she would have expected of him. He’d sworn that he’d sired no other bastards, that Darya was the only woman he’d been with since he and Edda had first kissed at Lannisport, and that it would never happen again, on his honor and integrity as a Baratheon, as her lord husband.

Edda believed him, or she wanted to. She believed that he thought that what he was saying was the honest truth. But now she knew that when Robert was… It was as if a weakness had been exposed in a foundation, and no amount of mortar would correct it. She could not trust him, not now. Perhaps not ever again.

Still, Robert was a man who needed, almost demanded respect, and she did still respect him as her husband and the man she’d loved- loved still, in spite of it all- but she respected him a little less. At least he had told her. At least the bastard was not a boy. At least he seemed genuinely regretful and ashamed. But none of that made her feel any more confident in their marriage. It was weak at the base. And she was afraid another blow would crack it to pieces entirely.

Stannis knew of the bastard. Had known, at their wedding. She did not blame him for not being able to bring himself to tell her. She had been truly happy then, and truly happy for the first few months of her marriage. And he was a man now, not a boy to scold. 

She looked at Robert and saw a boy in the way he still turned slightly away from her, into the freezing wind. 

“Her family has cast her out for siring your daughter,” Edda said, and her voice put the wind to shame. “They live in squalor and filth on the edge of a ramshackle little village with two pigs and a goat to their name. So here is what you will do. You will pay her the dowry she is owed for taking her virtue, so she might marry-,”

“No one will take her with the girl,” Robert said bitterly.

“Then we will offer to raise your daughter at Storm’s End,” Edda said after a moment where only the wind was heard.

“Eddara-,”

“I can live with a bastard girl in our household. I cannot live knowing one of your children freezes while the other wants for nothing.” Her hand came to rest on her stomach, and he followed her gaze down to it.

“Edda, I’m-,”

“Go in and tell Darya, and have the grace to look her in the eyes. I will wait here.” She stepped away from the hand he reached towards her, and turned her eyes to the towering mountains they stood in the shadow of.

“You’re freezing-,”

“Go,” she said through her teeth, and did not look at him again.

They returned to Storm’s End with Mya Stone, and Edda birthed a daughter two moons later, as snow blanketed Shipbreaker Bay. Like her half-sister, the babe had Robert’s coal-black hair and stormy blue eyes, but her face was long and all Stark, from the ears to the nose to the little, somber mouth.

“I thought to name our daughters for your house, and our sons for mine,” Robert said tentatively, sitting beside Edda on the bed after the maids had carried out the stained sheets.  
Edda nodded weakly, watching the babe suckle at her breast. Every inch of her ached, but she felt such a fierce protectiveness over the child that it was worth it. Mine, she thought. You are mine. “Lyarra, for my mother.”

“Lyarra Baratheon,” he said, laying a callused hand on the grunting babe’s head. “She will be every bit as strong as her own mother.”

Edda supposed she was strong, after all. Not in the same way Brandon and Lyanna were, but it took strength to let him hold their daughter and feel no bitterness or hatred, in that moment, just weary acceptance. 

“I will make it up you,” he swore, and she wasn’t sure if he was speaking to her or the babe. “Whatever it takes, I will do. I love you.”

A month later she asked him to write Jonelle’s father concerning a betrothal to Stannis, and he agreed. At least, she thought, something good had come of it. 

Edda made allowances in the running of her household. She was a strict mistress with the servants, but made sure their pay was generous and that their children were at least taught their letters and some sums. There were few unmarried ladies that she could spend her time with, as she once had with Barbrey and Jonelle, but she found a friend in Jeyne Swann, an unmarried lady of twenty, who hailed from Stonehelm, barely a week’s ride away. 

Mya did not sleep in the nursery with Lyarra and Renly, and Edda did not pretend that the girl was not a bastard, but she allotted rooms for the child and her wetnurse and saw no issue with allowing her and Lyarra to play together as they started to toddle around. She was content; not as happy as she had been in the earliest days of her marriage, but proud of what she maintained. She and Robert were well-respected as lord and lady of all the Stormlands, in spite of their youth, and the lands were peaceful. 

Edda would not have attended the Tourney at Harrenhall had it not been for the fact that her siblings would be there. She was loathe to leave Lyarra- her daughter had only recently celebrated her first name day, and was still too young to travel, and too young to enjoy the festivities at a tourney- but it was a chance to see Brandon and Lyanna and Benjen, and she could not pass it up. 

Robert was eager to participate in the tourney as well- to prove that two years of marriage had not softened him, she supposed- and so they made their preparations, leaving Stannis to rule as lord for the extent of their absence. Edda thought he seemed a bit too thrilled about it, but there was no harm in indulging him. 

Stannis and Robert had been on shaky ground again ever since word had officially broken of Mya Stone- Edda knew he thought that Robert had dishonored not only her, but all of them, as Lord Steffon had sired no bastards, nor had his father before him. Bringing Mya to live with them had not improved matters. Stannis did not think the girl’s place was at Storm’s End, and Edda could not quite blame him, but there was little to be done. They had given their word and she was determined to do right by the child.

It was unseasonably warm for late winter, and in the Riverlands the snow was slush on the muddy ground and heavy cloaks were cast aside for lighter ones and airier dresses. Edda wore a plainer gown of warm, earthy brown, but the neckline revealed her pale collarbone and it was trimmed in rich honey gold. 

With some amusement, when she first saw Lyanna she noted that she and her fellow Northron sister were among the few woman who wore their hair down and unrestrained, rather than up in elaborate Southron styles, but was taken aback by the younger girl’s beauty.

Lya had truly ‘blossomed’, if that was the word for it. She was still small and slender, but her dark curls hung in ringlets around her pale face, and her eyes were luminous, almost silver in the pale morning light. She wore a fine gown of dark, sapphire blue with pale gold scalloping that accentuated her small waist, and when she spoke, Edda realized with a start that her sister, all of fifteen, was no longer the little girl she’d known. A woman was steadily emerging. But there was still a touch of wildness in the way Lyanna laughed and jostled a grinning Benjen, who looked much older as well, fourteen now. 

Brandon was all of a man at nineteen and scowled like one- her siblings all reacted to Robert with the same impassive, cold stares, and he had the grace to look chastened and far from his usual boisterous self. Edda almost felt badly for him, and tried to keep some distance between him and the rest of the Starks as a result, although it came with the consequence of having less time with her siblings.

Barbrey was there, in attendance with her betrothed, Willam, and Edda, although she was loathe to admit it, had missed hearing her friend’s gossip and stinging barbs. 

“You’re a better woman than me, Edda,” Barbrey pointed out while they shared wine in one of the Northron tents during the afternoon, shortly before the feast to celebrate the start of the tourney. “I’d have been like to kill a man for siring a bastard just months before our wedding. Willam has none,” she snapped, when Edda gave her a baleful look. “I would know.”

Edda changed the subject. “When is the wedding?” 

“Before the end of the year,” Barbrey shrugged carelessly. “And then I shall be trapped in Barrowtown for the rest of my life, seeing Brandon and his fisherwife at every feast.” Her tone turned towards scornful.

Edda had met Catelyn Tully and her younger sister Lysa earlier that day, and thought both of them perfectly pleasant young women. “His wife to be is a Tully of Riverrun, and you and I both know that she has no idea of Brandon’s… habits,” she sighed. “Barbrey, even if you and he have-,”

They were distracted by shouts outside nearby, and came out to see Lyanna helping a bruised and blooded young man up off the ground, while throwing down a wooden tourney sword in disgust as three young squires slunk off, cursing.

Perhaps Lyanna was not as changed as she had thought. Edda had to resist the urge to laugh as her sister shoved a few errant curls out of her face as she approached, scowling fiercely. “Well, don’t just stand there! Help him, he’s a bannerman!”

The stunned (and quite small) young man was Howland Reed. Years later, Edda came to blame him in part for everything that occurred afterwards, although she knew it was wrong and marked her a foolish, bitter woman, clinging to a grudge to comfort her at night when she fought back tears.

Had it not been for Howland Reed, perhaps there would have been no Knight of the Laughing Tree. Had there been no Knight of the Laughing Tree, perhaps Rhaegar Targaryen would have taken no notice of her sister. And had the prince taken no notice of her sister…

But Edda knew none of that then. She smiled politely and introduced herself and Barbrey to the young man while Lyanna tended studiously to his cuts and bruises and thought nothing of it until it was far too late.


	10. Chapter 10

Edda felt as though time had slowed when she received the raven detailing her sister’s disappearance and her brother’s journey to King’s Landing. She had to stand very quickly, even being near six months pregnant, and walked briskly into the corridor, the letter in her hands as she rapidly scanned it again and again, the sounds of the laughter of Renly, Lyarra, and Mya playing fading away into silence. Her ears were ringing slightly when she finished reading the letter for the third time, and she felt as though she might vomit.

She should have foreseen this- could have. She’d confronted Lyanna about The Knight of the Laughing Tree on the last day of the tourney, and while her stubborn younger sister had neither confirmed nor denied Edda’s suspicions, she knew, and they both knew, who had beaten those squires and earned the suspicion of the king.

“You cannot keep up with these childish games,” Edda snapped at the time, irate with the way her sister looked at her as though she were a stranger, now that she was married and a mother, as if Edda had become someone else by ‘surrendering’ to her fate. “You will be married next year, most likely-,”

“I don’t want to marry Elbert,” Lyanna hissed in response, hands balling into fists. “I don’t love him, Edda, and I don’t want him. He’d have me locked up in a room sewing by the hearth for the rest of my days.”

“Men can change,” Edda tried to take a slightly softer tone, laying a hand on her sister’s slender shoulder. “You barely know him- if you would only spend time with him, you might see him as something more than a burden-,”

“The way Robert changed for you?” Lya had mocked coldly, and Edda had slapped her before she even really thought about it. She had never hit her sister, ever, but in that moment Lyanna was not her sister, not the little girl she had practically raised, despite them being only three years apart. 

“My marriage,” she had said, in a shaken tone, after a moment passed where Lyanna stood there in shock, a hand to her cheek, and Edda felt tiny pinpricks of shame and regret like goosebumps, “Is none of your concern. My concern is for you, and what may become of you-,”

“You think I asked the prince to give me that crown of flowers?” Lyanna demanded. “Are you mad? Edda, I’ve- I’ve no idea why he would-,”

“He shamed his wife in front of hundreds of people, for the sake of of a romantic overture-,”

“I did not-,”

“It does not matter whether you two shared a conversation, or a kiss, or gods forbid, anything more, Lya, he is a married man-,”

Her sister’s expression turned from shock to anger to contempt. “You think so lowly of me,” she scoffed, “That I would dishonor myself- get out. Get OUT-,”

The memory faded as she slowly leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes tightly and fighting back a sob. No. No. She had- she should have stayed, reconciled with her sister- would Lyanna have gone with Rhaegar, if she felt trapped in her betrothal to Elbert, abandoned by her family? But Lyanna was a Stark, and as honorable as she was willful. 

Edda could not fully believe that her sister would go so far as to run away with a married man. Mayhaps she had been briefly charmed by him, or not, but to go so far as to flee with him- And Brandon, temperamental, foolish Brandon, why hadn’t he at least thought things through first? Did he think to challenge Rhaegar to single combat once he reached the capitol? What was there to gain? He should have wed Catelyn Tully with haste and retreated to Winterfell to raise the banners. 

Robert was as shocked as her, but his shock had turned to black rage when the next piece of news came, news that sent Edda into labor roughly a month early while he burned the summons that bore Aerys’s seal.

“He will not have you,” he snarled, “Or me, or our children-,”

“What of my father and Brandon?” Edda begged, trying to ignore the pains ripping through her, too early, too soon.

Robert simply looked at her, and shook his head slowly. “Edda, please, I will not tell you how, it would-,”

“Oh gods,” she moaned, struggling to stand but sinking back into her chair. “Please, no- are they-,”

“I’m sorry,” he said, breathing quickly and heavily, chest heaving up and down. “I am, this is madness, he is calling on us as well, that he will spare Stannis and Benjen if we present ourselves-,”

“What of-,” she gasped, “Of the child-,” Her gasping grew to a shriek. “Robert, get the maester- gods, no, Father, Bran- Robert, quickly!”

Her husband called their banners, raven after raven dotting the gray sky, while she gave birth for the second time at Storm’s End. No storm, this time, but one on the horizon. Steffon Baratheon was born just after dawn, the sky moving from grey to pearly pink, the ravens all gone. Robert hoarsely suggested Rickard or Brandon, but Edda refused.   
The wounds were still bleeding in her heart. She felt as though she’d been split open. First her sister, now her brother and father. Winter was said to end by the end of this year, but it had come for her house. Benjen was just a boy, how could he be expected to lead the North in war against the crown? But war was the only choice. Rebellion. Yet Edda had heard of few rebellions that ever ended well for the rebels.

She wanted to leave. She wanted to go north, to Benjen, her only family left at the moment, but he was marching south with their lords. Robert was sailing with a fleet to Gulltown to help Jon Arryn regain control there, and there were murmurs that Fell, Cafferen, and Grandison were gathering in rebellion against their storm lord and lady, declaring their allegiance to the Iron Throne.

She wanted to find her sister, wherever she and Rhaegar might be, but she had no idea where that was, and what would she do? Ride up and demand that Lyanna be returned to her family, as Brandon and her father had done? She had a newborn son, a two year old daughter, and a young goodbrother and a bastard girl whom she’d sworn to raise. There was nothing to do but wait. She could not ride into battle alongside Robert, no matter how much she might want to. One of them had to rule while the other fought the war. 

Gulltown was easily subdued, and when Robert returned, he brought Benjen and a brown-haired girl she nearly did not recognize, riding into the courtyard as the first stars appeared in the sky. “Jonelle?” she gasped as the woman slowly dismounted, eyes wide under the hood of her riding coak. 

She was distracted by the fierce hug her younger brother gave her, and the beginnings of a beard on his jaw. “Ben,” she whispered, and embraced him so tightly she almost couldn’t bring herself to let go. He had a scar curling down from one cheek to his neck, but it was healing well and she could see that the wound had not been grievous. 

“I’m fine,” he assured her. “But we cannot stay long, Edda. We have to reach Summerhall before your loyalist lords can advance on Storm’s End-,”

To hear baby Benjen speak of battle strategy and carry himself like a man, not a boy, with a bow strapped to his back- Brandon had always been the better swordsman, but Benjen the better marksman, she remembered with a pang- was disorienting. 

“But why is Jonelle here?” she asked in confusion, although she took her old friend’s cold hand in her own, squeezing it comfortingly.

“To marry Stannis,” Robert said shortly, “And help assure Northron allegiance to our cause. Some of your brother’s liege lords doubt his… judgement, due to his youth.”

“I- does she even have a maiden cloak?” Edda asked weakly, but her husband was already consulting with some of the other men.

“You mustn’t hold it against him, Edda, he was worried that Storm’s End was already under siege the entire way here,” Jonelle said reassuringly. 

Edda had to remind herself that the girl was fifteen now, and while not quite a grown woman, old enough to be wed. She steeled herself, tucking her worries and fears away, and straightened. “Very well. You’ll have to use my bridal cloak, and I’ll start sewing your maiden cloak while you rest. Jeyne and some maids will help me.”

Jonelle protested this, but the girl looked dead on her feet, and Edda had her seen to rooms near hers and Robert’s, the ones she and Jonelle and Barbrey had stayed in all those years ago. It seemed like a lifetime, now. She nearly ran into Stannis on the stairs, and he swore- that was how she knew he was well and truly agitated. 

“She’s here?” he demanded, and Edda nodded. “She- Robert’s a bloody fool,” he cursed, “She could have been killed or worse-,”

“I’m sure they kept her well away from the battle.” Edda was too tired to argue with him over the merits of the decision at the moment. She had a maiden cloak to sew, men to house and feed, and a septon to find to conduct a marriage the next morning. “Don’t disturb her- I had her taken to bed. She’ll need her rest for the morning.”

Stannis still looked furious. Edda fixed him with a hard look. “Do you still love her?”

“I- yes,” he said after a moment, some of the anger in his voice fading to something almost soft and vulnerable, not often seen in the second Baratheon son. “I’ve always loved her.”

“Then that’s all that matters,” Edda said simply. “Regardless of what the future holds, you will be together, and know you love one another.” She brushed past him, calling over her shoulder. “Look in on the children, please! I don’t want them to be frightened, hearing strange men in the halls.”

The men shifted restlessly the next morning, eager to return to the fray, while a hurried wedding was conducted in Storm’s End’s sept. Jonelle had no fine white gown, but her worn grey furs sufficed, and Edda had done her best with her goodsister’s hair, trying to coax it to frame her round face and sweet eyes. If her maiden cloak looked slightly shoddy, then the bridal cloak, made for the lady of Storm’s End, made up for it, and the kiss between husband and wife lasted a little longer than appropriate, to Edda’s amused surprise.

Within a week the men were gone again, save Stannis and a few others. Robert had insisted his younger brother remain home- it would be disastrous if they both fell in battle, and Edda agreed with him, as much as it hurt her to watch her husband and brother ride off, while Jonelle got to keep hers by her side. 

Robert won at Summerhall and pressed northwards, into the Reach, where they lost at Ashford and retreated, while the Tyrell army surged into the Stormlands. Edda braced herself. The Tyrells would never be able to take Storm’s End in a single battle, but they could wait them out. They could starve them out. Their granaries were not full. Edda watched the Redwyne fleet at the other side of the bay from the armaments with Stannis and Jonelle, a quiet Steffon in her arms. Lyarra was a high-spirited, temperamental little girl, much like her father, but her son was quiet and sober, even for a babe. 

“My children cannot starve,” she said finally, after the long, grim silence that stretched between them. Jonelle was not yet pregnant, thank the gods. They could not deal with a siege and a babe on the way. 

“If we ration strictly,” said Stannis slowly-

“We will have to, or Robert will return to find corpses.” War had made her a cold, severe woman, she thought regretfully. Slow to smile, expecting the worst. But what else was to be done? There was no escape. No battle to be won here. Only to wait, and pray, and wait some more, for a decisive victory, or a decisive defeat. And she could not bear to think of what defeat would bring. Even if they crowned Rhaegar king, even if Aerys was killed-

“We will be alright,” said Jonelle hopefully. “If Robert and Benjen defeat the main loyalist host-,”

Ben is a boy who has survived every battle thus far through pure luck alone, not skill on the field, Edda thought dismally, and Robert has only his rage to guide him. And I cannot be there to temper his anger now. Were she a man- but she was not. She was a woman, and this was her place. Keeping the spirits up while the Tyrells waited for the She-Wolf of Storm’s End to surrender.

Aerys cooked your father alive in his armor, and strangled your brother as he reached for his sword, she reminded herself coldly. He would make you watch while he gave your babies to the flames, no matter the lies of mercy and forgiveness Tyrell and Redwyne and Rowan try to sell you. You are a Stark. You can endure. You must.


	11. Chapter 11

Edda could count her ribs by the end of the siege. She’d always been slender, but she was bone-thin and weak by the time the smuggler Davos slipped past the Redwyne fleet and managed to land near Storm’s End, bringing onions and fish. She’d never thought she’d break down and almost weep at the sight of barrels of food, but it had taken all of her self control to calmly thank him without wanting to fall to her knees and thank the old gods. The smuggled food lasted them another full month, long enough for the Trident to be won by the rebels and King’s Landing to be sacked.

But Edda cared for none of that. She cared for watching the siege break and scatter as the Reach forces fled, realizing the king they’d pledged themselves to was dead and the war over, and the sight of a familiar figure riding into the keep.

“Benjen!” it came out in a strangled shriek as she practically flew down the ancient stone steps towards the man dismounting his horse. Stannis and Jonelle were not far behind, but the children hung back warily. Lyarra was three and chewed anxiously on a lock of dark hair, and Mya Stone, nearly four, held the smaller girl’s hand protectively. Renly was six and still painfully skinny, his hair nearly down past his shoulders, but looked hopeful. The three were typically mistaken for siblings by those who did not know them, along with little Steffon, newly one.

Her brother looked tired, Edda thought, as she broke their embrace, keeping her hands on his shoulders. He’d always been small and slight, like Lya, but he was taller than her now, although never as tall as Robert, and at sixteen looked far older now, lines on his face and a rough beard. He had wed Catelyn Tully, who was once to have been Brandon’s bride, just before the Trident, and Edda was startled when he told her he was a father to an infant son.

“Edwyle,” he said quietly, “For Father’s father.”

She was surprised he had not named the boy Rickard or Brandon, but then, she understood. Some pains would never fade for either of them. 

She was distracted by the murmurings of the men who had accompanied her brother to lift the siege, and frowned as some of them began to kneel. “Ben, what is-,”

“They crowned Robert king,” he told her seriously, and she almost laughed hysterically for a moment, sure this was some sort of odd jape, but “Your Grace” and “Hail the new queen!” and “Queen Eddara!” had begun to ring out and fill the courtyard, and she felt as though she’d stumbled into some strange dream.

King’s Landing was a broken city. Edda would have rather gone with Ben to find their sister, whom was rumored to be hidden somewhere in Dorne, but she was the queen now, as hard as it was to believe, and she had not seen her husband in a nearly a year. Her husband, the king, Robert Baratheon, First of His Name. She refused to ride in a palanquin behind fluttering silk curtains, and rode at the head of the honor guard instead, on old, trusted Marna, without a crown on her head, and her children never far from her side. She wore black- anything else would have seemed disrespectful, she thought, after the bloody civil war that had just ended, and when she rode past the stag banners decorating the battered Red Keep, tried not to stare. 

This was- this was all wrong, she was not a queen, and Robert was not a king-

But he looked it, on the Iron Throne, and she was sure only she saw how uncomfortably he sat upon it. 

After the initial shock and relief of being together again had passed, and they’d escaped the watchful gaze of the fledgling court to retreat to the private rooms reserved for the royal family, Edda watched maids work to scrub the blood out of the stone walls and floor in the rooms where Elia Martell and her children had been murdered.

“Who?” she asked Robert coldly. 

“Clegane and Lorch,” he said, “Although Tywin Lannister will never admit it was on his orders. I had them taken to the Black Cells. He tried to-,” her husband swallowed stiffly, “Present me with the bodies. Covered, of course. I didn’t- the little girl, Rhaenys, she was… of an age with Lyarra.” There was a hollowness to his tone.

“They’ll be executed tomorrow,” she said. “And Lannister will count his blessings that he keeps his head, commanding the slaughter of an innocent woman and children. I heard you pardoned Ser Jaime.”

“What could I do?” Robert demanded. “The man only did what someone else would have done, ramming a sword through the monster’s back.”

Edda wanted to remind him that if Jaime Lannister had so freely killed one king, he might not hesitate to kill another, but she could not argue with him on that. “Then the best thing to do is to keep him here. Let him retain his place in the Kingsguard and keep his father-,”

“Edda,” Robert said seriously. “Before Benjen reached Storm’s End we did not know if you were alive or long dead. Ravens were being shot out of the sky. Tywin Lannister obviously had some-,” he hesitated, and continued, expression dark, ‘Hope that you and the children had… passed, and that he might offer Cersei to me as my queen.”

“Then no wonder he did not look pleased to see me at court,” Edda murmured sardonically. “He will take his men and return to Casterly Rock, and toss his daughter at any unwed man that he chooses.”

Robert nodded slowly, and she followed him down the darkened corridor into a solar. “You want this throne no more than I do,” she said as closed the door.

“Of course I don’t want it,” he snapped. “But they crowned me regardless- who else would have taken it? Jaime Lannister? Your brother? I have a Targaryen grandmother, and the High Septon has deemed that close relation enough to justify the whole thing.”

“We belong at Storm’s End,” she said fiercely. “I did not hold that castle for near a year to abandon it now-,”

“Stannis will have to take it,” he said dismissively. “There’s nothing else to be done, Edda. We won. I slew Rhaegar on the field-,”

Edda looked at him closely. “Did he speak of-,”

“I fought him, and he died,” Robert snapped. “And I watched his body sink into the bloody river. For you. For us. We could not live while Aery or Rhaegar ruled-,”

“I am not disputing that,” she snapped. “But the queen dowager and the prince remain on Dragonstone-,”

“It will be taken eventually.”

“Really?” she challenged. “Because it seems they intend to fight to the last man, whether they are all killed or not, and there are whispers that Rhaella is with child.”

Robert heaved a frustrated sigh, blue eyes flashing. “What would you have me do, offer Viserys the throne? The boy is seven years old and may be as mad as his father, and I can assure you, none of the lords who helped me win this war would tolerate it.”

“Offer him his life,” she snapped, “His and his mother’s. We are already known as child-killers due to Lord Tywin’s ambitions, and it will not help preserve the peace if we kill a pregnant woman and a little boy.”

“I cannot do that-,”

“Then I will!” she almost shrieked.

“Eddara!” he roared, and Edda faced him head-on, mouth set in an unwavering line, grey eyes hard. “I am the king, whether you or I like it or not, and we cannot-,”

“You are not the king,” she hissed, “You are holding the throne until we can come up with a better solution, and I am no queen. We are the Lord and Lady of Storm’s End, and this throne is not ours by rights-,”

“I took it, then, those are our rights,” he snarled. “You cannot begin to understand what--,”

“I faced my own war,” she cut him off savagely. “I kept your children alive, your brothers alive, I kept the men from rioting and giving me and Stannis over to the Tyrells, I prayed and sang and sewed by the fire and it was no less difficult than what you faced, husband. You fought on the field. I fought in my mind, and the minds of everyone around me, because the moment they began to doubt we could survive it was the moment our lives were forfeit.” Her voice wavered slightly. “And if you had died- if Rhaegar had won-,” she shook her head mutely, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment.

He went to her then, taking her in his arms, and Edda held onto him and let herself drop her mask of icy calm just for a few minutes while she sobbed hoarsely, because even thinking of what might have happened was enough to make her crumble. 

The next day she watched the executioner slice through the necks of Gregor Clegane and Amory Lorch. Clegane raged, Lorch begged. Both died far quicker, she thought, than they likely deserved. The court clearly thought Robert a true king, but they called her Winter’s Queen, for her face betrayed nothing and her silences said more than her words. 

Edda never indicated verbally that she did not wish to sit a throne beside her husband, but she heard the whispers that perhaps Cersei Lannister would have made a far prettier picture, smiling and waving to the smallfolk in fine, ornate gowns, while Eddara Baratheon dressed modestly, simply, and prayed to those savage Northron gods in the godswood.

Those who had been at Storm’s End during the siege, however, hotly countered that Eddara Baratheon might as well have been the Mother reborn, so well had she kept up the spirits during that dreadful siege and so protective was she of her children. 

And then Benjen Stark returned to King’s Landing with the babe.

What followed nearly plunged the kingdoms into war once more. To begin with, many were loathe to believe that the child- who was clearly the son of the now officially deceased Lyanna Stark, but lacked Targaryen features- was even Rhaegar’s own blood. But Arthur Dayne, Oswell Whent, and Gerold Hightower all swore on their lives the child was their dead prince’s son, and it made sense- who else could have impregnated Lyanna? 

Then there was the matter of whether or not the boy was legitimate, which was never fully put to rest- the men of the old Kingsguard claimed Rhaegar and Lyanna were married in the eyes of the old gods, if not the new- and the High Septon eventually named the boy Jaehaerys Targaryen with a scowl. 

They were fools, was all Edda heard, for months. Fools to give up their throne to a likely bastard, son of a dead man and dead woman, who could have easily been smothered in his sleep or drowned in the Blackwater. But she saw the first man to suggest such imprisoned, and the ‘suggestions’ died down. Robert and her would rule as the child’s regents until he came of age. The seven kingdoms could rest easy knowing that this Targaryen was not born of incest and would be raised by stags, not dragons. 

Eddara was the one to coax a still pregnant Rhaella Targaryen and her son out of their exile on Dragonstone, now that the woman’s grandson had been crowned a prince and one day, a king. 

She was the one to send Viserys Targaryen to the Citadel to study as a maester, with four sworn knights to guard against potential assassinations. She had not been happy to do it, but the boy would never be content at court, knowing his chance at the throne had been stifled by a mere babe, and the lords demanded he be removed from any chance of inheriting, as a son of Aerys. It had been that or the Night’s Watch. 

She was the one, along with the help of her goodsister Catelyn Tully Stark, to arrange the marriage of Rhaella Targaryen and Brynden Tully, after the woman bore what would be her final child, a girl named Daenerys. The maesters said the woman would never have another child, and Eddara doubted she was happy for the marriage, but Brynden Tully was a good man who would treat the former queen with the respect she deserved, even if there was no love to the match.

Eddara found that peace was not something you held firmly in your hand like a scepter. It was a hissing, struggling serpent, and had to be either ground under the heel or coaxed to coil up and nap in the sun. And ten years of summer helped with that. 

Part of her was convinced Robert would always bear a slight grudge for having to give up what he had won, but he loved her and their children more than any throne, and she bore one more son, Ormund, when Lyarra was six and Steffon four. In Edda’s mind, the war never ended- it stretched on, and Lyanna was still just out of her reach, bleeding a babe into the world, dying feverish and rambling in a tower, unable to tell her story- had Rhaegar forced her, had she gone willingly, why, why, why had any of this had to happen?

But Edda had always been good at waiting, even if there were questions that would never be answered. She could wait for summer to pass. Winter was still coming, just as it had come once before, and this time, she was determined to be ready for it.


	12. Chapter 12

Edda had never felt older than she did when she watched her daughter exchange her vows with her husband in the Great Sept. Newly eighteen, Lyarra was tall and lovely, with black curls that went almost to her waist and blue eyes that darkened to a grey so dark it was nearly black when she was angry. She had the long Stark face, but Edda thought she carried it as well as Lyanna had, and her bearing was proud as Brandon’s had ever been as she knelt to let her husband wrap the bridal cloak around her shoulders.

By the time she stood again she was Lyarra Lannister, no longer Baratheon, no longer the ‘Almost Princess’, but she smiled fiercely as she and the Imp stepped down from the dais. Edda very much doubted that Tywin Lannister had been the least bit expectant that they would accept his offer of his dwarf son’s hand in marriage, and had almost relished the look on his face when Robert had asked him to send the boy to court, although the halfman had been nineteen, a man grown by the standards of Westeros, and Lyarra just twelve when it had been proposed.

Then again, Edda had been surprised herself when Lyarra took a strong liking to Tyrion Lannister. The man was clever, probably too clever, and disarmingly kind to a girl he should have hated by all rights- all of the Seven Realms knew there was little love lost between the Baratheons and Lannisters by now, after the events of the rebellion. But it was as close to a love match as Edda could have hoped for her eldest, who would always have to put peace before herself, and for a girl like Lyarra that was not always easy.

Still, she made a beautiful bride, defiantly staring down anyone who looked at the couple with dismay or revulsion. Edda had heard the whispers often enough; what sort of mother would give her only daughter to the Imp, the deformed spawn of Tywin Lannister? A mother, she thought, used to making sacrifices, and as sacrifices went, this one was fairly tame. Tyrion Lannister would treat her daughter well, and for the time being they would remain at court and far from the reaches of Casterly Rock.

At the feast afterwards she sat with her husband and sons and nephew- Ben and Cat had not come for the wedding, but she could hardly blame them for staying in the North. Her brother had sworn to never return to King’s Landing after bringing Rhaegar’s son home, and she had accepted this. Ben had suffered greatly, and Winterfell needed its lord and lady. Perhaps they could visit the North before summer ended, in the coming months. Steffon and Ormund had always gotten along very well with their Stark cousins, Edwyle and Rodrik, and the last time Edda had seen her only niece, little Minisa, the girl had been only five.

Jon was looking at her now. The people called their prince Jaehaerys, but to Edda and Robert and their children, the boy had always been Jon, from the time he could first toddle about. There was very little of Rhaegar in his appearance, even now. Whenever Edda looked at him, all she saw was Lyanna, in his eyes, his nose, his mouth, even the way he carried himself. His hair was so dark it was nearly black, and it was growing too long again, she noted, rather maternally. 

“You should ask Arra to dance,” she suggested with a slight smile. Jon was closer with her sons, rather than her daughter, but he and Lyarra still got along very well, although they had nearly identical tempers.

He rolled his dark eyes. “She’s dancing with Joff Hightower, and looking as though she wants to kill him.”

Edda glanced in the direction where her daughter and Cersei Lannister’s eldest boy were moving amidst the other dancers- Lyarra did look infuriated by whatever the smug-looking boy had just said, although he was just that, a boy, about the same age as her youngest, Ormund. “I’ll rest easier,” she said quietly, “When Lady Cersei and her brood have returned to Oldtown.”

Tywin Lannister had given his daughter to Baelor Hightower in marriage years ago, and all three of their children looked Lannister to the very core, with their mother’s golden locks and green eyes, although Baelor was fairhaired as well. Edda trusted none of them, and had only permitted the presence of them at court because it was, after all, the woman’s brother’s wedding, and she had not seen her own twin in quite some time, although she disliked the fact that Cersei and Jaime Lannister were deep in conversation in some dimly lit corner immensely.

“Where is your fa- your uncle?” she corrected herself at the last moment, although she knew Jon had noticed. You are not his mother, she reminded herself, not for the first or last time, but she’d felt like she was, had raised him with her own children… but her children would not be kings or queens. 

Jon would, and she was determined that he know the burden of duty before he took the throne himself in two years time, and married his aunt, Daenerys, who had been raised at Riverrun. Edda was loathe to call the girl to court until it was absolutely necessary. Let her at least have some semblance of a childhood- and gods forbid she attract a following who’d rather see her as queen, instead of queen consort. In the Riverlands, with her mother and stepfather, she was safe.

“Drinking,” Jon snorted, “With Jon Arryn.”

Jon Arryn had served as their Hand for fifteen years, and his mind remained sharp as ever. However, that didn’t mean he could not still drink with the man who’d once been a boy that he considered alike to a son. Lysa Tully Arryn, his wife, and their young son, the sickly boy they all called Sweetrobin, were nowhere to be seen. Edda had half a mind to send the boy to Stannis and Jonelle at Storm’s End to to be fostered, but considering Lysa’s reactions to any attempts to get the boy out of her embrace… It was a matter to be resolved another day.

“Then I suppose you’ll have to dance with me,” she said with mock-reluctance, rising to her feet and taking her nephew’s arm. Mya was nowhere to be seen- likely off kissing some young lord, she thought dismally, gods, what were they going to do with that girl? But although she thought herself no better a dancer at thirty five than she had been at fifteen or twenty five, Jon made up for it, and she let herself relax in a way she usually only did when out of the gaze of the court and safely behind closed doors with her husband and children.

However, the growing look on Jon’s face steeled her for whatever was coming, and she felt a rush of dread when he opened his mouth, somehow knowing what he was going to ask.

“You promised to speak to me of my mother,” he accused in a low tone, as they whirled.

“Jon,” she said softly, “What is there to-,”

“They call me the Bastard Prince,” he retorted, “When they think no one is listening.”

“You are no bastard,” she said firmly, fiercely. “I promise you that.” But she was not even certain herself.

“Then why can’t we at least talk of what happened to my parents?” he demanded.

“You know,” she protested, “Jon, you have been taught the history, you know what happened-,”

“I don’t,” he snapped. “I know what the maesters thought sounded best. Aunt-,”

Once he had called her ‘Mother’, and she had not corrected him. Once.

“Jaehaerys,” she said gravely.

“Shouldn’t it be ‘Your Grace’?” he sniped in frustration, his hands clenching hers.

“Your Grace,” she said coldly. “You are the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, rightful heir to the Iron Throne, and I promise you, when you come into your seat, no man or woman will question it. Your uncle and I have kept it for you since you were just a babe-,”

“I’m nearly a man now,” he pointed out bitterly. “A man who they say is the son of a rapist and a whore-,”

Edda might have struck him, had they not still been dancing. Instead she pinioned him with a look so cold, even he looked abashed. “I did not say I believe it, Aunt-,”

“Your father made mistakes,” she said quietly. “Many mistakes, and he lost his throne and his life for it, and he took my sister from me, and his father took my father and brother. But you are not a mistake. I cannot tell you the exact circumstances of your birth. I was not there. But you are a Targaryen, Jon, and you will have all that you deserve. No matter the whispers. I will ensure it.”

That, at least, seemed to appease him. After the song had ended she danced with both her sons, and her new goodson, and then finally, for she could not avoid it any longer, Tywin Lannister.

His hands were cold, she noted, even colder than her own. Edda was a tall woman, but the older man still towered over her, and beyond their courtesies she saw the naked truth of it all- that were it just the two of them, he would gladly choke the life from her with his bare hands, for all that she’d done to his family. 

No, she thought, all that you have done. You set your men to pillage the city. You sent Clegane Lorch to do your butchering for you. You thought to make a queen of your daughter, and that was your mistake. Your own greed was your downfall, and now my daughter will one day rule as Lady of Casterly Rock, when you are dead and buried, and that day cannot come soon enough.

“The maesters say summer will end by the next year,” he commented, and Edda looked at with narrowed eyes.

“Yes. We will be making harvest preparations shortly. After such a long summer, the autumn should pass swiftly.”

“Your house words ring true, then,” Tywin continued, coldly. “Winter is coming.”

Edda smiled, but it was more like a baring of teeth, for all that she was Lady Eddara, the quiet queen regent who scorned both crowns and jewels. “As do my others.”

Ours is the fury, she thought, and I will not hesitate to bring that fury down on you if you ever stand in the way of my nephew’s rule. 

Jon Arryn took ill shortly after the wedding, and passed quickly, feverish and rambling.

Lysa and his son disappeared back to the Eyrie.

Edda began to consider who on the Small Council she trusted, and whom she did not, while Robert lost himself in grief once more. She comforted him as best she could, and summoned Stannis Baratheon to the capitol as the new Hand.

They met in private; her and Robert, Stannis, and Jon, as she could admit the boy was old enough to be included in such discussions by now.

“You believe Jon Arryn was murdered,” Stannis stated flatly. “And that Pycelle is in the Lannisters’s pocket.”

“We should have sent the grey rat to the Rock years ago,” Robert snarled.

“And have him even closer to Tywin Lannister?” Edda demanded. “No, he was better left here, where he-,”

“Could kill our Hand?” Robert cut her off, and the two shared a dangerous look before silently agreeing to set that fight aside for later.

Jon was looking between them all in confusion. “Why would they want to kill Lord Jon?”

“Because now the Eyrie is in the hands of Lady Lysa,” Edda said, “And she will be far less inclined to lend us aid than her husband would be. I dislike her fondness of Lord Baelish, but if we dismiss him he will just go back to the Eyrie and her, and we will have even less of an idea of his plans.”

“Renly weds Margaery Tyrell in three moons,” Stannis said, “There are rumors that Mace Tyrell, his heir, and that mother of his spend far more time in Oldtown than would be expected of the rulers of Highgarden.”

“You don’t think-,”

“If they have gained the trust of Viserys Targaryen,” Stannis continued coldly, “I can only imagine that his maester’s chain will never be finished, and exchanged for a crown instead.”

“How old is he now?” Robert asked with a scowl. “Twenty?”

“Twenty two,” Edda answered for him. “He’s been studying at the Citadel since the age of eight-,”

“I’m sure he knows his history,” Stannis snapped. “And I doubt Tywin wed his daughter to a Hightower on a whim. They will try to crown the man king, sooner or later, and the Reach and the Westerlands will fall behind them.”

“If they rise, we’ll crush them, just as we did the Iron Islands-,” Robert began heatedly, still the warrior, although the last time he’d seen battle had been ten years earlier.”

“And the Martells,” Edda was considering the map table before them now, head swimming, “They have been quiet for far too long.”

“They have not forgotten Elia and her children,” Stannis commented.

“No,” she murmured, “No, they would not have…”

Jon had been silent, but now stood. “We should send ravens to Uncle Benjen and the Iron Islands.”

Edda glanced at him in disbelief. “The Iron Islands-,”

“They’re the only ones who can reach Lannisport, the Shield Islands, and the Whispering Sound, at least, before any Baratheon ships could,” he argued.

“I didn’t take Balon Greyjoy’s crown just to hand it back to him with a smile,” Robert said darkly.

“We may have to,” Edda said, “Unless we want to be surrounded to the West.”

“So it’s war again?” There was a light in her husband’s eyes that she had not seen in years. The position of regent had weighed heavily on him. Edda loved him still, but she knew he had been happiest at Storm’s End, and they were so close to being able to step down, to go back to the way things had been before-

“It will be, before winter comes,” Stannis remarked grimly.

“Then we must send the ravens now,” Edda had already decided. “And one to the Riverlands, as well, both to prepare themselves, and to summon the princess.” She exhaled. “It’s time for Daenerys Targaryen to come home to King’s Landing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An ending, for now. The Lannisters and Tyrells are conspiring to put Viserys on the throne instead of Jon, the Baratheons are going to have to bargain with the Greyjoys, and after enjoying a peaceful childhood at Riverrun, Dany is going to have to learn how to rule, and quickly. Petyr Baelish is up to his usual scheming, and in the North, some direwolf pups may have just been discovered... And the Martells may have met with a certain Young Griff and his father.


End file.
